
THE > JACK - IN * THE * BOX • BOOKS 


MARION AMES TAGGART 







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Book 4 !£-.? 

Copyright N° G2U 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


















The J ack-in-the-Box Books 

THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

MARION AMES TAGGART 


The Jack-in-the-Box Books 

BY 

MARION AMES TAGGART 

Illustrated by 
ANNE MERRIMAN PECK 


AT GREENACRES 
THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 
THE -BOTTLE IMP 
POPPY’S PLUCK 



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“why NOT SIT UP ALL NIGHT,'’ SAID ISABEL 




The Jack -in -the- Box Books 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

BY 

MARION AMES TAGGART 

AUTHOR OF “THE LITTLE GREY HOUSE,” 

“THE DAUGHTERS OF THE LITTLE 
GREY HOUSE,” ETC. 


Illustrated by 
ANNE MERRIMAN PECK 



NEW 


YORK 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 




COPYRIGHT, I92 1 » 

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



/ \) 

SEP 16 132 i \* 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


9CLA624379 

^ I 


DEDICATED 

TO 

HAROLD GERHART 

THAT DEAR LITTLE BOY 


WITH LOVE 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I Opening Day 13 

II Saws, Hammers and Nails — T wo Kinds! . 27 

III Hurrah and Hurrahing 43 

IV The Cloud in the Sky 57 

V “The Lucky Four” 71 

VI The Dear House 85 

VII The Queer Man 99 

VIII Round Red Radishes 113 

IX Queer Happenings 129 

X “You’d Hardly Know Greenacres!” . 145 

XI The Shadow of Parting 161 

XII Merrily Putting Off Sorrow . . .177 

XIII Gypsying 191 

XIV Under the Stars 205 

XV A Clear Day 221 

XVI Hawthorne House Abloom: . . . . 237 


[vii] 







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ILLUSTRATIONS 


“Why Not Sit Up All Night/’ Said Isabel 


F rontispiece 

PAGB 


Poppy Held the Lines and Isabel and Prite 

Jounced Up and Down Singing 82 

So They Went On, Sowing the Whole Garden 

Full op Old-Fashioned Flowers .... 64 

Poppy Called, “Radishes! Round Red Radishes! 

Grown by a Red-Head” 120 

“We’re all Together, all Together, Forever and 

for Aye,” They Sang 240 



THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 







THE 

QUEER LITTLE MAN 


CHAPTER I 

OPENING DAY 

F OUR children sat around a large room 
which was empty of all furniture except 
wooden packing cases, in attitudes that indicated 
their various temperaments. Prue Wayne, 
twelve years old, sat up straight ; she was as trim 
in muscles as in her tightly braided fair hair, her 
fleckless deep collar, her correctly laced shoes 
which were crossed, one over the other at the 
ankles above her sturdy feet. 

Isabel Lindsay, also twelve years old, half lay 
over the arm of her chair on her elbow, every line 
of her body graceful and expressive of interest, 
although her position might easily have been a 
lazy one. She was far prettier than neat and 
shining Prudence ; her dark hair turned into rings 
[ 13 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


wherever it could steal the chance, her gray-blue 
eyes were brilliantly soft under their dark lashes ; 
she had delicate, flexible lips, and clear, healthy 
pallor of complexion. 

The third little girl was not yet ten. No one, 
even if he had not merely kissed, but had dined 
on the Blarney stone, could have said she was 
pretty. Fiery red hair was the first thing one 
saw about Poppy Meiggs, and that could be seen 
afar. She was a thin little creature, with light 
lashes, a sharp face, now covered with more than 
its ordinary quantity of freckles, because March 
had been and gone and had left upon poor little 
Poppy’s sensitive skin a crop of these brown re- 
minders of its sunny days and strong winds. 

Poor little Poppy was plain plus; she was 
downright ill-looking, but those who loved her — 
and there were now several of these — forgot her 
looks. 

Her temper was as fiery as her hair; she had no 
patience, not yet much self-control, but she was 
loyal and generous, and loved her beloveds with 
all her tempestuous heart. She was clever, too. 
Now that dear little Mrs. Hawthorne had res- 
cued her from destitution, after her father had 
died and her mother had run away and left her 
children, Poppy was fast learning more than 
most children of her age know. “She grabbed 
[ 14 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

everything she heard with both hands and fairly 
crammed it into herself,” Mark Hawthorne said. 

Mark Hawthorne was the one boy in this 
group ; he, like Poppy, was perched on a window 
sill, but where Poppy sat up keen and small and 
tense, like a sharp little splinter of redwood, 
Mark sat lightly poised, swinging his crossed 
legs, giving the effect of a woodland, winged 
thing that was his wonderful attraction. He was 
a beautiful creature, lithe, graceful, his hair a 
tawny brown, his eyes brown and gold, flecked 
like a goldstone. His face was full of witchery. 
He made older people long to seize him in a 
tight embrace, yet feel as though he would still 
be free, however tight they held him. Isabel 
and Prue had dubbed him Jack-in-the-Box when 
they had first known him, because he had ap- 
peared and disappeared so suddenly; like a jack- 
in-the-box he was there and then he was not. 
But now that he and his father were making a 
beautiful home for dear little Mrs. Hawthorne, 
Mr. Gilbert Hawthorne’s mother, after years 
of cruel sorrow and separation and bitter poverty 
for her, the nickname was passing into disuse. 

“Well, am I housekeeper or amn’t I?” de- 
manded Poppy. “That’s what I want to know. 
Motherkins said I was to look after the men age ; 
that’s French for men and boys — Mr. Haw- 

[ 15 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


thorne and Mark — and it means the whole she- 
bang. So if I say we can have this room you 
don’t have to ask, so there!” Poppy was ex- 
cited, but then she usually was excited. 

“I think we ought to ask her,” Prue said 
firmly. “My mother says no matter if we know 
she’ll say yes about a thing, give her the chance 
to say it. She calls it ‘proper deference.’ ” 

“Oh, gosh!” Poppy exploded disgustedly. 

“It’s all right to be good, but you’re a regular 
fussy! Ain’t what I say enough, Isabel?” 

“Of course a housekeeper settles things, but if 
I were you I’d always show little Motherkins 
you have her on your mind. She’ll love to be 
told, Pops,” said Isabel, the tactful, who could 
get around Poppy’s danger signals without caus- 
ing an explosion, as Prue never could. 

“Well, of course I like to tickle her,” conceded 
Poppy, her scowl abating, and the question was 
settled. 

“We’ve decided that this is Opening Day, and 
it sounds all right, but I don’t know what we 
mean, not really! We’re to have this room for 
our headquarters; Mrs. Hawthorne won’t care 
when Poppy asks her, because they don’t use 
this half of the house, and we’re to furnish it in 
packing boxes, and meet here and sit on the 
boxes, and have one for a table. Please don’t 
[ 16 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

any one tell me this, because we’ve said it over 
and over and I’m kind of tired of it. But that’s 
all I do know. We ought to open something, or 
open for something — or something!” Prue ap- 
parently had got herself tangled up in the word 
and could not shake it off. 

“ We’ll open — open — open to begin, like 
spring!” cried Isabel with a laugh. “Just to be 
nice and have good times, and be ready for every- 
thing, anything that comes along. It’s the 
twenty-fifth of April, and Mark is thirteen years 
old to-day. He’s opening his ’teens ; we’re open- 
ing a club in his honor.” 

Isabel seemed to feel that this explanation 
covered the case. 

“Oh, well, my gracious!” cried Prue in a sort 
of patient exasperation; “we were all together 
before now, and ready for good times. What I 
say is if a thing doesn’t mean anything, why — 
why — well, wdiat does it mean?” 

“It means to run around all the faster, par- 
ticular Prue; like Pincushion when 1 she tries to 
catch her tail. Now that doesn’t mean anything, 
but look at the fun she has!” cried Mark catching 
up his round kitten, Pincushion, now grown into 
a rounder little cat. “I’ll tell you what, Prue: 
You’re thinking about opening things that are 
full — like sardine boxes, or nuts, or a prize pack- 

[ 17 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


age. This club isn’t like that ! It’s opening up; 
not just opening. You open up something to 
be filled after a while — like a new country, or a 
mine, or possibilities! That’s it! We’re opening 
up possibilities! We don’t know what we’re for; 
we just open up, don’t you see?” Mark ex- 
plained this with much waving of hands and with 
his shining eyes full of laughter, but neverthe- 
less he was not a little impressed by his own 
discovery. It instantly became clear to him that 
wonderful things were to fill this opening they 
were making. 

Isabel kindled with him. These two were “of 
imagination all compact”: they got out of every 
play and every day not only more than Prue, but 
more than was there to get. 

“You can’t tell what will happen!” declared 
Isabel. “Look how we went to the woods that 
day last spring, Prue! Just happened to race 
the way we do, and we found Jack-in-the-Box- 
Mark! Shall I ever in all my life forget how I 
thought maybe he was a fairy, or some one like 
Peter Pan, when he told us to shut our eyes 
and count and then was nowhere to be seen? Oh, 
you never can tell! I sort of think it’s better not 
to know what we mean by Opening Day, be- 
cause then we can feel it’s too big to understand.” 

[ 18 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

Prue had not been following Isabel’s en- 
thusiastic reasoning. 

“Is that why you were named Mark, because 
you were born to-day?” she asked. Prue-like 
she had been plodding along by herself the path 
indicated by Isa’s allusion to the twenty-fifth of 
April. 

“Surest thing you know!” Mark nodded hard. 
“Daddy liked naming me after St. Mark, as 
long as I was born on his feast. He said he 
wouldn’t have called me Martha or Clotilda if I’d 
been born on those days, but St. Mark was just 
right.” 

“How do you make packing box chairs?” 
asked Poppy, in her turn not heeding what was 
said. 

“I’m going to put one on top of another, in- 
stead of making legs; they’d wobble, sure,” said 
Mark. “Then I’ll knock out one side and leave 
the other three sides. Then I’ll wad it soft and 
easy. Then I’ll cover it with some kind of nice 
stuff. Then ” 

“Then I’ll sit on it!” shouted Poppy in high 
glee. “I bet it’ll be funny! You can’t make ’em, 
Mark! Four, besides some for comp’ny — 
Motherkins and your dad.” 

“Certainly I can make them,” said Mark with 
scorn. 


[ 19 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“I could do that, too,” said Prue, who had a 
taste for using a hammer, and never failed to hit 
a nail on the head, nor ever hit her own nail. “I 
can carpenter as well as you, Mark Hawthorne !” 

“Carpenter away, Prudence! We’ll be able 
to use another hand in my shop,” Mark smiled 
with the kindly toleration of the sex made by 
nature to wield a hammer. 

“I can’t build the chairs, but I can make the 
covers fit and plan how they’ll be prettiest,” be- 
gan Isabel, but Poppy, who had been looking 
sharply from one to another, broke in upon her, 

“Well, I shall sweep up! A nice mess you’d 
make if I didn’t keep it nice! And I shall get 
what there is for eats, and I shall fix it, so now!” 
she announced. 

“Oh, mercy, you’ll do more than that, Poppy!” 
cried Isabel. 

Sometimes it was a slight burden to keep in 
order Poppy’s touchy desire to equal the rest. 
She was a jealous little creature, but in her jeal- 
ousy seemed less mean than in others. She 
adored Mrs. Hawthorne, Mark and Mark’s 
father, and loved Isabel Lindsay with a sort of 
furious worship. A poor, untaught child, made 
motherless by her mother’s desertion, which was 
so much sadder than to lose a mother by death. 
Poppy had set out in life with heavy handicaps. 

[ 20 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

It was natural that she should be on the watch 
lest these happier children should surpass her. 
They never resented her touchiness, but under- 
stood and helped her. Isabel especially made a 
point of smoothing the feathers which Poppy 
was always ruffling up in the fear of being ever so 
little out of things. 

“I hear her!” shrieked Poppy suddenly, and 
darted out of the room at top speed. 

She came back panting, towing by the hand 
sweet little Motherkins, like a little craft with a 
prize captured on the high seas. 

“Here she is,” announced Poppy. “Now tell 
her and ask her.” 

Motherkins smiled inquiringly, but calmly. 
She was used to Poppy’s ways. She was a very 
dear little woman; that was to be seen at a 
glance. She had soft brown hair turning gray; 
it had a sheen over it like exquisite silk. Her 
face had an expression of playing laughter, yet 
with it the patient sadness left by her long years 
of desolate grief when she had been poor and 
had thought that her one child, Mark’s father, 
was lost to her forever. He had come back rich 
enough in money, richer by far in Mark, the dear 
lad! Now little Motherkins, brought back into 
the big house that had been her home before 
trouble came, was the happiest person outside a 

[ 21 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


fairy tale. But her face still bore the imprint of 
what she had suffered; it had made her tender 
to all things, great and small. 

The children’s name for her showed what she 
was. Mark could not think of calling one as 
youthful and tiny as she was “grandmother,” so 
he called her Motherkins, and she was a little 
mother to the other three. 

“Dear me, Poppy,” Motherkins remonstrated 
as Poppy breathlessly tugged her into the big 
unfurnished room. “I’ll come along peacefully! 
I won’t run away. Why use violence?” 

“We’re going to tell you something,” said 
Poppy putting her capture on the most comfort- 
able box, more comfortable than the others be- 
cause it was a better height to sit on, though not 
softer. “We’re having Opening Day.” 

“Are you?” asked Motherkins glancing about 
with a little laugh. “What are you opening — 
or is it only the day that opens?” 

“That’s it, Motherkins!” Mark leaped down 
from the window sill and ran over to pat her ap- 
provingly. “That’s what I told ’em when they 
where fidgetting to find out what it was about. 
It’s Opening Day; that’s all.” 

“And my dear boy is opening his ’teens to- 
day!” Motherkins looked up with shining eyes 
into the golden-brown eyes bent toward her. “It 
[ 22 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

sounds nice and uncertain, as if anything might 
come of it, from the four and twenty blackbirds 
that were in the pie, to a congress! All sorts of 
things are opened, when one comes to think of 
it.” 

“You’re the one to catch on!” cried Mark with 
a triumphant crow of delight, but Prue, steadily 
intent upon her duty, said : 

“We thought, Mrs. Hawthorne, we ought to 
ask you if you cared if we used this room? Right 
along, to meet in? We kind of think we’ll do 
things and have it for our headquarters. Do you 
care?” 

“Not in the least wee bit, except to be honored 
to have something so cloudily splendid sounding 
in the house,” declared Motherkins. “The room 
is yours from this instant.” 

“We wanted it because of the balcony out that 
window and the piazza roof,” said Isabel as 
though that explained the mystery. 

“Oh!” said Motherkins, and Mark laughed. 

“Might be handy,” he added. 

“Certainly, but do be careful not to slip if 
you get in and out that way,” said this under- 
standing little lady. 

“Thanks, oh, thanks, you darling Mother- 
kins!” cried Isabel. “Is that Bunkie I hear? I 
know it’s his voice.” 


[ 23 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“It is Bunkie and has been for some time; he 
thinks you have been in session without him long 
enough,” said Mrs. Hawthorne, rising. “And I 
have a sort of Opening Day of my own. Mine 
is opened downstairs, and it is not only a day, 
but a freezer opened! In honor of Mark Jack- 
in-the-Box having a birthday. Won’t you come 
down to the dining room and celebrate with me?” 

With a shout the children rushed to the door, 
Poppy turning three cartwheels in rapturous 
welcome of these tidings. 

“I’d like to know where you hid it,” she panted 
coming right side up once more. “I kinder 
thought maybe you and Mr. Daddy ’d be doing 
somethin’ for the birthday, and I sorter snooped, 
but not a freezer did there be, nowheres.” 

Poppy’s English still failed her under excite- 
ment. 

Motherkins laughed. “Mark’s daddy and I 
can play tricks, too, little Miss Gladys Popham 
Meiggs!” she cried. 

“Well, there ain’t much I can’t hunt out 
when I try,” boasted Poppy justly. 

Dashing out of the room she fell over Isabel’s 
little rough haired dog, mostly Scotch terrier, 
who had been named Bunker in honor of his 
christening day, the seventeenth of June, and 
[ 24 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 


whom, like Poppy, Mrs. Hawthorne had adopted 
when he sorely needed kindness, but against 
whom Poppy harbored a little jealousy . Isabel 
had taken him into her heart and home, but still 
Poppy disliked loving little Bunkie. 

“Gee, that Punk!” Poppy exclaimed as she 
tripped over the small creature, who was rap- 
turously running to meet the children. “Pretty 
near I went kersmash over him! He’s the 
snarledest looking dog! He’s the limit. If you’d 
of made me tumble, you raggedy ravelledy 
thing!” 

Laughing and shouting the three children, 
with Bunkie barking and leaping, and Poppy 
stalking behind, really angry for a few minutes, 
went down to the dining room. Only part of the 
house, occupied but six months, was in order, but 
this room was one that was beautifully furnished. 
A fire of logs blazed on the hearth in the library 
beyond, it color reflected in the dark mahog- 
any in line of the open door. 

Mr. Hawthorne, Mark’s wonderful father who 
knew all sorts of woodland lore and was in every 
way a child’s ideal, stood at one end of the table. 
Before him sat a platter with a sliding mound of 
delectable brown, pink and creamy white, which 
he was ready to serve. 


[ 25 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“Many happy returns, dearest boy of mine!” 
he said giving Mark his ice cream last of all. 

“Yum- Yum; opening day!” said Mark signifi- 
cantly, stretching his mouth wide to admit a 
heaped teaspoonful of ice cream. 


[ 26 ] 


CHAPTER II 


SAWS, HAMMERS AND NAILS — TWO KINDS! 

P RUE sat back on her heels, her thumb in 
her mouth and that mouth sagging at its 
corners. 

Mark was.sawing on the.side of a packing case, 
making a cheerful whistling through his teeth, 
but the saw was slender; it swayed and bent a 
good deal, and the course it had so far followed 
through the side of the box was as scalloped as 
if it had been cut by a cheese scoop. 

Isabel and Poppy were tacking bright 
colored chintz in deep pleats over a much smaller 
box. Isabel was silent; she looked pale and her 
lips were closed in a line that was almost grim. 
Poppy on the other hand was red even to the tips 
of her ears, and she betrayed a decided tendency 
to scold some one, any one who gave her the least 
opening. 

As no one paid any attention to Prue, who had 
been hammering nails out backward from a third 
box, she was forced to voice her woes in a bid 
for pity. 


[ 27 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“I shouldn’t be surprised if I had lockjaw,” 
she said plaintively. Isabel looked up, saw her 
best friend’s miserable face and the thumb in her 
mouth, around which she had spoken indistinctly, 
and jumped up to run over to her. 

“Did you hurt yourself, Prue darling?” she 
asked. 

“I struck my nail like — like — I struck my 
thumb nail awful hard, Isabel! Do you suppose 
it doesn’t hurt? I just about can’t stand the way 
it aches. I think likely I’ll have lockjaw, or 
lose the nail, or something.” Prue struggled to 
keep back the tears, but her voice was sadder 
than tears. 

“Oh, no, dear!” cried Isabel. “It must be 
fearful, but it won’t come off, or make lockjaw. 
Let me see. Poor, poor thumbling! It’s a dark 
red!” 

Isabel examined the short, sturdy little thumb 
with the air of a whole college of physicians, and 
Prue bitterly turned it and bent it back and forth 
as if newly introduced to it. 

“I was not meant for a carpenter,” she said, 
feeling unjustly put upon. 

“Well, who was?” exploded Poppy. “I can’t 
get these darned ” 

“Poppy! You must not say darned!” cried 

[ 28 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

Prue, forgetting her pain in her passionate desire 
to keep Poppy straight. 

“They are!” said Poppy. “Well then: These 
sweet pretty red and blue chintz parrots, or hens, 
or something! I can’t get ’em on straight. And 
Isa keeps a-pulling the stuff all round and how 
can I?” 

“Some job to saw through this box straight 
with a saw like a lemonade straw, if you want 
to know,” Mark added to the lamenting chorus. 

“Let’s chuck it !” cried Poppy. “It’s too hard 
to make our own furniture, and ’twon’t be one 
bit of good if we do fuss and muss it, and all our 
poor fids get pounded bust!” 

“We’ve got to furnish this room, and where’d 
we get the money? It would cost a lot. Mother 
bought some new piazza chairs, and she said the 
kind that used to be about three and a half she 
paid seven for,” said Prue removing her thumb 
to say this. It was like Prue to know about high 
prices, and like her to be ready to keep on with 
the work in hand, though for her it had proved 
to be work on hand, most painful to endure. 

The instant she had spoken she jabbed her 
thumb quickly between her lips again and wrig- 
gled the fingers on the same hand because it hurt 
so much. 

“Let’s go out and do stunts in the streets and 

[ 29 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


people’d give us money for it, and we’d buy fur- 
niture,” cried Poppy. 

“Oh, Poppy! They’d know us!” Isabel’s 
voice was horrified. 

“Sure. And not be afraid we’d be gypsies, 
or something, if they gave it to us,” Poppy an- 
swered as if being known were a good thing, but 
she understood Isabel nevertheless. 

“ ’Course we couldn’t go around like that,” 
said Mark. “Maybe we could get some stuff 
out of people’s attics ; I mean maybe people have 
things they don’t use and we could borrow them, 
or pay for ’em by doing errands or weeding — if 
they’d sell them. I’m kind of thinking we shan’t 
make much of a go at tinkering boxes into chairs 
and tables, and by the time we got done we’d be 
too old to sit down if we could do it. By the 
time we got ’em done we’d be ninety-nine, and 
stiff from old age.” 

Isabel laughed. “Prue and I would be only 
ninety-eight when you were ninety-nine, and 
Pops would be a young thing of ninety-six, 
nearly! We’d have to stand, and let our callers 
sit down. Well, then, what are we to do, Jack- 
in-the-Box? You’re the one that was so keen to 
make the furniture, and Motherkins has given us 
this lovely chintz that I know she wanted her- 
self.” 

[ 30 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“Beg,” said Prue. She found it sounded like 
“beck” with her thumb in her mouth, so she re- 
moved it, and went on. 

“My mother has lots of kind of wobbly chairs 
in the attic; so has yours, Isa. It would be easier 
to brace ’em up than to fuss like this. Besides 
there are some kind of outgrown, odd ones, that 
used to be pretty. They are strong, but they 
got ugly. I don’t see why, but mother always 
says when we go up there: ‘Do see those really 
awful chairs ! And when I was first married, and 
my mother bought them for me, we thought they 
were beautiful!’ So they’d do for us; we’d be 
younger’n she was when she was married, and 
maybe we’d think they were beautiful. Anyway 
they’re chairs, and they’re heaps prettier than 
our packing box ones would ever be, and I know 
mother’d let us have them.” 

“Well, so would mother,” said Isabel, her 
meaning, if not her expression clear. “I suppose 
— But we were planning to do it all ourselves.” 

“It’s awful silly to do things when you can’t,” 
said Poppy decisively. 

“I think that would be pretty clever, Miss 
Gladys!” laughed Mark. “All right, then; jig’s 
up! Jig saw? Mine wasn’t that kind. We’ll 
gather up these tools and put them all back in 
dad’s bench drawer. Nothing gets my sweet- 

[ 31 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


tempered dad going like having me use his tools 
and not put them back ! Then we’ll go out beg- 
ging furnitufe, like survivors of a fire.” 

“I know!” cried Poppy hopping around on 
her right foot, holding her left ankle in her hand. 
“We’ll dress up! We must put on funny tastic 
things and pretend we were all burnt up — I mean 
all we had in our houses.” 

“Trust you to see a chance to dress up, 
Popsy!” laughed Mark. “The word is fantastic, 
my dear, but I shouldn’t wonder if funny tastic 
was better when you’re the one dressing up !” 

“It don’t make no odds to me, Mark Haw- 
thorne,” said Poppy with dignity. “I’m getting 
my learning as I go along, and I’m not near done 
with it, and I don’t put on one single luggs, mak- 
ing believe I was to college.” 

Isabel dove into one of the packing cases, pre- 
tending to be searching for a screw driver; it 
never would do to let Poppy see her laugh when 
Poppy was so solemnly in earnest as she then 
was. 

Isabel emerged flushed and short breathed. 

“We might go right to Prue’s house and mine 
and see what’s there,” she said. 

The spring was coming on so fast that now, on 
the 27th of April, the sunshine was warm enough 
to do away with the necessity of much prepara- 
[ 32 ] 



POPPY HELD THE LIKES AND ISABEL AND PRUE BOUNCED UP AND DOWiSf 
SINGING. 







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THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

tion for going out. Prue and Isabel and Poppy 
needed no more than their blue serge coats, all 
similar, and their hats. Mark pulled a slip-on 
sweater over his head, caught up a cap, and they 
were ready. Stopping only long enough to put 
the borrowed tools back in their place, the four 
sallied out. 

The big house, the old Hawthorne house, stood 
just beyond the woods. There was a subterran- 
ean passage that had been made in Revolution- 
ary days, leading up to the house from the woods. 
It was because Mark knew this passage and used 
mysteriously to appear and disappear through it, 
to the wonder of Prue and Isabel, who almost 
suspected him of being Peter Pan, or another 
citizen of fairyland, that they had dubbed Mark 
Jack-in-the-Box when they had first seen him. 

Now they did not go through the hidden pas- 
sage, though they had come to use it freely them- 
selves, but they did go by the woods; no matter 
where they were going, these four children nearly 
always were able to persuade themselves that 
the nearest way to get there was to start by 
going through the woods. Much as they loved 
them, well as they knew them, there was always 
more to love, more to discover in the woods each 
time that they went into them. To-day, with the 
buds swelling to bursting on the trees, the wil- 

[ 33 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

lows, distant along the brook, showing a golden 
mist through the shadows ; the maples red in bud ; 
the ferns palely green, with brown caps on their 
full heads, turned over like a bishop’s shepherd- 
crozier, the woods were lovely as a dream, a 
dream that was at the same time an assured 
promise of joys to come. And the air was fra- 
grant with arbutus, lying deep under the damp 
brown deposit of last year’s leaves, modestly 
anxious to hide its perfection, but, like a lovely 
soul, revealing itself by its sweetness as it hid. 

Isabel drew a long, inward breath. “Oh, how 
can it be so heavenly!” she sighed. 

“We must go down to the brook soon and see 
how Chateau Branche is getting on,” said Prue, 
forgetting to nurse her thumb. 

“Dad said we must not get up into it till he 
examines it, to make sure it is strong after the 
winter,” said Mark. “But I’m sure it’ll be all 
right. Dad built it to last. Say, isn’t it pretty 
nice to have a house like that in a pine tree wait- 
ing for us when spring comes back? We’re lucky 
kids!” 

“Of course it is only a platform in the 
branches, really,” said Prue, the exact. “But 
that’s nicer than a house with a roof — and it 
doesn’t rain on us unless it simply pours down.” 

“Chateau Branche is a house; don’t you spoil 
[ 34 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

it, Prue Wayne, calling it a platform,” cried 
Poppy. Prue’s literal way of getting everything 
labelled exactly exasperated Poppy, and there 
was always within her heart jealousy of Isabel’s 
affection for Prue; to Poppy Isa was adorable 
perfection. On the other hand Prue had less 
patience with Poppy than Isa had; her im- 
patience, her flaming quick temper, her sudden 
extremes of mood tried sensible Prue ; she had to 
struggle to be just to Poppy. It is to Prue’s 
credit that she did struggle to do her justice, kept 
in mind her unfortunate childhood, and did not 
let Poppy feel coolness toward her. Prue was a 
thoroughly good little girl, though she was not as 
interesting as brilliant Mark, nor as exquisite 
Isabel, nor as clever, wild little Poppy herself. 

“I won’t spoil Chateau Branche, Poppy; I 
just was thinking it was a platform after all. 
But I always think of it as our house in the tree, 
same’s you do,” Prue answered gently. 

“You can get some rustle in the dry places, but 
not like in the fall,” said Poppy. She had for- 
gotten her warning about Chateau Branche, and 
was going along scuffling her feet through the 
piles of leaves which eddying winter winds had 
heaped in places. 

“I’ll be glad when we can come here and sit 

[ 35 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


around; it’s a little weeny bit damp yet,” said 
Isabel with a slight shiver. 

“Race me out, the way we always did; you’ll 
get cold,” said Prue with an anxious look at more 
delicate Isa. 

“Oh, but I can’t go straight to your house, 
either of your houses,” said Poppy unexpectedly, 
and with trouble as to her plurals. “I forgot! 
Motherkins told me this morning I had to go to 
the store for her some time to-day, and this is 
the last chance. Come with me.” 

“Why didn’t you say so before, Poppy?” cried 
Prue. 

“Well, what’s the odds? We’d go through 
the woods anyway, and turn around,” Poppy re- 
minded her. 

“Nice to know,” observed Isabel, but they did 
“turn around,” and struck out of the woods by 
another path leading to the business end of the 
town, instead of keeping on toward Prue and 
Isabel’s homes. 

Poppy’s errand was at the grocer’s, but she 
also went to the druggist to get an insect des- 
troyer for Motherkin’s beloved garden, to do 
away with the hungry slugs waiting for her 
plants to put up their tender shoots. The drug 
store was next to the post office. Greenacres’ 
postmaster was a character, a small, weazened, 
[ 36 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

deformed man named Babcock, toward whom all 
the children of Greenacres held two distinct at- 
titudes of mind in the first and second stages of 
their knowing him. When they were small they 
were all afraid of him; his deformed body, and 
sharp, curious face filled them with terror. After 
they were past seven they swung from fear of 
him to love for Mr. Babcock; he was eccentric, 
but kind, and did many things for the children 
that won their gratitude; it mingled with pity for 
him to make them love him. 

Now, as Isabel, Prue, Poppy and Mark came 
out of the drug store they saw Mr. Babcock in 
the post office doorway. 

“Saw you out of my private office,” he said. 
“How are you, Hawthorne sprig? And how are 
you, Isabel Lindsay and Prudence Wayne? And 
you, Miss Meiggs? Want a horse, Poppy?” 

“Oh, my gracious!” gasped Poppy. “What 
do you mean?” 

“A horse, a horse, a horse,” Mr. Babcock 
thrice repeated. “H-o-r-s-e, an animal that used 
to be common, but got side-tracked by gasoline 
engines and the farmers’ flivvers, but is still use- 
ful, and to my mind beats autos. I’ve got a 
horse, a buckboard — old-time, sagging buck- 
board! — to give away, and I sort of picked you 
out as the one to have it.” 


[ 37 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“Mel Me!” Poppy sat straight down on the 
sidewalk regardless of everything. 

“I won’t sell him. I could, to some one who’d 
get what was left in him out of him in a year and 
let him starve after that,” said Mr. Babcock, in 
a fury at his own imagining. “I won’t sell him. 
He’s twenty-two years old, but he’s good for a 
long time, decently treated; sound and can trot 
right along, not a bad looking fellow, chestnut, 
came of good stock. Think your folks’d let 
Poppy have him, Mark?” 

“I think so, I’m sure so,” said Mark, as sur- 
prised as Poppy, but rising to the occasion as 
she was too overcome to do. “My father said 
he’d like to have a horse on the place. I think 
he’d keep yours for Poppy, if she’d let dad use 
him sometimes.” 

“I won’t sell him,” said Mr. Babcock again, 
shaking his head hard. “I’d just’s lieves as not 
Gilbert Hawthorne’d use him. When he was a 
littler boy’n you are now he was as kind to ani- 
mals as a lamb! But he’s to be Poppy’s horse, 
mind that! And her buckboard! Want to see 
him? Will you have him, Poppy?” 

“Oh, my days, my days!” cried Poppy, burst- 
ing into excited tears. “I don’t want to see him! 
He’s a horse, he’s alive, he goes, don’t he? Oh 
my, a horse! Say, I’ll die! He’ll haul me to the 
[ 38 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

cemetery first thing! Oh, Mr. Babcock, you ain’t 
postmaster, you’re an angel, just an angel! 
Le’me hug you! Oh my land of lollypops, I’ll 
bust!” 

“Well, come along to the stable; it’s better for 
busting than the street, and you can see the 
horse,” said Mr. Babcock laughing. “Here, get 
up off the walk! I’ll hitch him up, or do you 
want to ask your father first, Mark?” 

“No. Dad’ll say yes, hut if he doesn’t I’ll 
bring the horse back. I’d better take a bag of 
oats home on the buckboard,” said Mark. 

Isabel and Prue had not spoken. This was too 
amazing to allow of speech. They silently fol- 
lowed to the stable, and were introduced to the 
horse, whose long brown nose thrust itself for- 
ward over the stall door as they entered, showing 
that it was used to sugar in the pockets of visit- 
ors. 

“I’ve done my best for you, old man; I’d keep 
you if I could, but you’ll be all right where you’re 
going. I wouldn’t sell you,” Mr. Babcock said 
with a quaver in his voice. 

Poppy solemnly took the brown face between 
her palms and kissed the middle of the boney 
nose. 

“My little darling, you are to be my child,” she 

[ 39 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


said with rapturous tears running down her own 
short, freckled nose. 

Mr. Babcock led the horse out. He proved to 
be decidedly well-built, with fine, straight legs, a 
full tail, a good head. 

Mr. Babcock put on the harness and led the 
horse out to be backed into the shafts of the 
buckboard, standing in the stable yard. 

“Get up on the seat, Poppy. He’s yours, so 
you drive home. He won’t play a trick on any 
one, not for the world. Mark, you might get up 
along side of her. Good-by, all of you. Good- 
by, old friend. I’ve done my best for you. I 
wouldn’t sell you,” Mr. Babcock said, handing 
Poppy the lines. 

Isabel and Prue climbed up on the buckboard. 
There was no question in their minds of not 
going back to the Hawthorne house ; this was too 
exciting an adventure to leave unfinished. 

As the horse began to move, obedient to 
Poppy’s tightening of the fines, and Mark’s 
order to: “Get up,” Poppy being unable to 
speak, Isabel found her tongue for the first time. 

“What’s his name, Mr. Babcock?” she asked. 

“Hurrah. He was bom on the day of Dewey’s 
victory in Manila Bay,” said Mr. Babcock. 

He did not smile, but Isabel, Prue and Mark 
fell over rocking with laughter. 

T40] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

P°ppy was unable so much as to hear the 
horse’s name. 

The quest of furniture was completely for- 
gotten. Slowly and with decorum, the buck- 
board started away, drawn by Hurrah and 
watched and watched out of sight by Mr. Bab- 
cock whose eyes glistened with moisture. 

After they had gone beyond the business 
streets, Hurrah voluntarily began to trot. 

Poppy held the lines and Isabel and Prue 
jounced up and down on the body of the buck- 
board, singing with Mark at the tops of their 
voices: “Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah!” 


[411 





CHAPTER III 


HURRAH AND HURRAHING 

P OPPY ate her supper in a daze that did not 
interfere with her appetite, but did keep 
her from knowing what she ate. 

Mark was not much less excited. It really was 
an amazing thing to come home from the post 
office with a horse and buckboard, “precisely as 
if it had been sent parcel post,” Mark said. 

“And you would have to go down to get it, if 
it had come that way, because the carrier won’t 
carry awful big packages,” Poppy added. 

Mr. Hawthorne had raised his eyebrows 
doubtfully when they asked him if Hurrah might 
stay on the place, but he had not the heart to say 
no, and when he saw the horse he said yes, wil- 
lingly. 

“He’s not a colt, but he’s a healthy, good look- 
ing elderly gentleman, and he’s welcome,” Mr. 
Hawthorne said. “You and Mark must take 
care of him between you, Poppy, bed him, curry 
him and feed him; that’s fair if I buy him feed. 

[ 43 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


We’re the sort of people, thank God, that a 
horse, or even a child more or less, can be tucked 
away among and not worry us.” 

“Oh, dad, you peach! I like everything about 
you best of anything else ; I think the best thing 
about you is whatever I happen to think of, but 
the very best thing about you, straight, right 
along, all the time, is the way you are with birds 
and beasts and us kids!” cried Mark, beaming 
adoringly on this ideal father of his. 

After supper Mark came out on the piazza. 
Poppy’s rockers were making such a racket that 
she did not hear him, so he stood still, shaking 
with laughter, watching and listening to her. 

She was deep in a great porch rocker, clasp- 
ing its arms with her thin, well-shaped little 
hands. She was rocking furiously, swinging her 
body forward and back with the motion of the 
chair. Her flaming red hair swung forward and 
back as she rocked ; it had the eff ect of flames in 
the wind — and indeed her excited little brain was 
on fire. 

The rockers struck hard on their rear tips, then 
just as hard on their front tips and made a great 
noise on the piazza floor as they rocked, but high 
over their noise soared Poppy’s remarkably 
clear, true and sweet voice, fairly shouting a song 
[ 44 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

which she had just made. It relieved her feel- 
ings, but the words were hardly poetry. 

She sang: 

“Hurrah, hurrah for Hurrah, rah, rah! 

He’s brown and alive and better’n a car. 

He can eat oats and hay and not old gasoline; 
And his nose is so soft you might think it was 
cream. 

Hurrah ! Hurrah loves me, if I am a red-head ! 
He’s my own horsie darling and I’ve put him to 
bed.” 

In her ecstasy Poppy lurched over an arm of 
the chair and caught sight of Mark, crimson from 
suppressed laughter, his hand over his mouth. 

“Laugh if you want to!” she shouted. “Just 
laugh! It’s all so, and I’ve got a horse, and if 
I don’t die in the night thinking about it I’m 
going to sing a whole uproar about it to-morrow. 
Oh, Jack-in-the-Box, honest to goodness, am I 
Poppy; honest, am I?” 

“You dear child, don’t you know no one but 
Poppy could be so glad?” said Motherkins com- 
ing out past Mark and taking the quivering little 
body in her arms. “Dear, your head is burning 
and your hands are icy! You must quiet down, 
childie, or you won’t be able to look after Hur- 

m 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


rah. Come, sit on the arm of my chair, and let us 
plan how we’ll drive through sweet, shady roads 
with Hurrah, when it is June.” 

“You don’t know how it feels to have a horse 
given you. Who’ll wipe the dishes?” cried 
Poppy. 

Motherkins laughed. “You and I, perhaps, 
after a while, but we’ll rest first. And the day 
after to-morrow we shall have some one to do it 
for us.” 

Mr. Hawthorne drew a chair into the farther 
corner of the piazza and Mark came to sit on 
the arm of his chair, as Poppy sat on Mother- 
kins’. 

“Are you bothered, dad?” whispered Mark, 
sensing something unnatural in his father’s 
silence. 

Mr. Hawthorne rested a hand on the boy’s 
shoulder as the other dropped on the rough coat 
of Semper Fidelis, “Semp,” his devoted dog, 
never far from his master. 

“S-sh!” warned Mr. Hawthorne. “Don’t let 
Motherkins hear that ! I don’t know, my laddie, 
whether I am bothered or not, or rather whether 
I’m reasonably bothered or not. I suppose I do 
know that I am a little uneasy in my mind,” 

“Could I know?” hinted Mark. 

“Not to-night. If there’s anything to tell you 
[ 46 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

shall know, of course. I’m not sure that there 
is. You tell me, instead, what you are going 
to do about furnishing your club room — isn’t it 
a club room? You told me that you’d given up 
making the furniture,” Mr. Hawthorne diverted 
Mark’s thoughts. 

“I guess the furniture gave up letting us make 
it!” Mark laughed. “We’re going to see if we 
can’t get some, enough, from Mrs. Lindsay and 
Mrs. Wayne; old stuff stored in their attics. 
We’re going in the morning, Poppy and I, with 
Hurrah in the buckboard, and if there’s any for 
us we’ll load it up.” 

“I’ll drive,” Poppy called across. She had not 
heard anything else that Mark and his father 
had said, but she instantly caught the allusion 
to Hurrah. 

Before it was light Poppy was out of bed the 
next morning, creeping down the stairs, her 
shoes in her hand, making no more sound than 
a red maple leaf makes eddying down from the 
tree in the wind of October. 

She put on her shoes on the back porch and 
sped over the wet grass, frantic to get into the 
stable to see whether Hurrah were a fact or a 
dream. Almost she had convinced herself that 
she had dreamed the whole marvelous story, and 

[ 47 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


there was no one about to tell her that her joy 
was real. 

There was Hurrah, real enough, looking im- 
mense in the dim light. But Poppy’s anxiety 
underwent a swift change. Hurrah was a fact, 
but he was lying down! Poppy had never before 
seen a horse off his feet; instantly she made up 
her mind that he was desperately ill. 

“Oh, my darling, my darling, my darlingest!” 
she wailed, bursting into a tempest of tears. “It’s 
those nasty little sharp oats! I thought they’d 
stick you ! Oh, Hurrah, Hurrah ! That you can’t 
do! Get up and speak to me, angel!” 

Hurrah looked at Poppy languidly, then he 
yawned prodigiously, and this finished her hope 
of him. She had never seen anything so alarm- 
ing as this cavernous mouth, stretched to show 
uneven brownish teeth. She did not know that 
Hurrah was not accustomed to being called at 
four in the morning and was not anxious to 
waken. 

Poppy turned away with a great rending sob, 
and rushed back to the house, crying so hard at 
the top of her penetrating voice that by the time 
she got to the house Motherkins, Mr. Hawthorne 
and Mark all had their heads out of windows on 
the side of the house nearest to the stable. 

“Poppy, dear, what is it?” cried Mr. Haw- 
[ 48 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

thorne. He was sure that some one had stolen 
Hurrah in the night, or else that he had hung 
himself in his halter. 

“Come, come, come! He’s dying! My horse 
is dying!” shrieked Poppy. 

“Choking in his halter probably,” said Mr. 
Hawthorne. “All right, Poppy; wait there. I’ll 
be down in a minute.” 

“But, daddy, we didn’t put a halter on the 
horse,” said Mark as they both hurried to their 
rooms to throw on some clothes and go to Hur- 
rah’s rescue. They ran to the stable, Mark and 
his father out-stripping Poppy, whose breath 
was nearly used up from running. 

Hurrah had risen and stood sleepily looking 
over the low door at the rear of his stall as his 
new friends entered. 

“What’s wrong with you, old chap?” asked 
Mr. Hawthorne, putting one hand on the soft 
brown ears, the other under Hurrah’s fore leg 
to try his temperature. “Why, Poppy, I don’t 
see anything wrong with your horse, except that 
he feels, like the Sluggard: ‘y° u have waked me 
too early, let me slumber again.’ Why did you 
think he was dying?” 

“He — he was lying down,” sobbed Poppy, 
“and he opened his mouth fearful, as if he was 

sick at his stomach and gasping for breath.” 

[ 49 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Mark uttered a shout of pure joy and his 
father laughed. 

“Horses lie down to sleep; didn’t you know 
that, little Poppy? And he was yawning. He 
doesn’t want to be called at four in the morn- 
ing, at his age. To tell the truth, neither do I ! 
Let’s all turn in again, and I’m afraid I’ll have 
to forbid your visiting Hurrah till we’re all up. 
Never mind this time; I’ll wager you thought 
you’d dreamed him, and came out to see if he 
were real.” 

Mr. Hawthorne gently rumpled Poppy’s hair, 
which was already sufficiently disturbed by a 
night of restless tossing. 

After breakfast Mark, seated on the rear of 
the buckboard, with his feet dangling, and 
Poppy on the seat to drive, started away in pur- 
suit of furniture. 

Mr. Hawthorne called after them to say that 
Mark must get up beside Poppy to be ready to 
help her if she needed help, but otherwise their 
triumphal start was not hindered, and Hurrah 
showed no sign of dangerous illness. 

They found Prue at Isabel’s house. Both little 
girls hailed them gleefully. 

“We didn’t believe it was so; we thought we 
must have imagined it, but there he is, and you 
have him!” cried Isabel. “Mother, motherums, 
[ 50 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

come see the horse! Poppy’s driving him. 
Where’s your whip, Pops?” 

“I never strike him,” said Poppy sternly, as 
if she had driven Hurrah for years. 

“Well, he’s really a nice looking horse. Really 
very nice! And how happy you are, little 
Poppet! I am delighted that you have him.” 
Mrs. Lindsay looked delighted. She had a beau- 
tiful face, sweet and calm, with a lovely light in 
her eyes, the beauty of one who had suffered. 
She had lost her other children in an epidemic of 
diphtheria ; only Isabel had been left to her, and 
through the brightness of her smile shone the 
strength that had conquered grief unselfishly. 

“I asked my mother, and she says we may have 
some things she stowed away,” said Prue. 

“And you are welcome to several chairs and a 
table from my attic,” added Mrs. Lindsay. “Shall 
we go up and look them over? Tie Hurrah, 
Mark, and come up with us.” 

The children trooped up the stairs, up the first 
and second flights, but Poppy lagged behind un- 
naturally; she was usually ahead of the others. 
She was sorely tempted to stay with Hurrah and 
keep flies off him, though the flies were still not 
abundant. 

Mrs. Lindsay was one of those delightful peo- 
ple who remember precisely what they liked 

[ 51 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


when they were in short skirts with their hair 
braided and ribbon-tied. 

She selected a low rocking chair that would fit 
any one not above four feet high; another with a 
cheerful design of flowers painted on its wooden 
back; a low, bulging willow armchair that had 
seen better days, but might then have been 
stiff er ; a queer old footstool covered with worsted 
embroidery, and a table of oak with a drawer in 
it and a shelf across the bottom which would 
comfortably hold games and sizable books, be- 
sides not being too good to put one’s feet on, in 
case one were writing at the table. 

“Now, with Mrs. Wayne’s contributions, you 
will have enough,” said Mrs. Lindsay dusting her 
hands as she emerged from beneath the eaves. 
“But I think I shall contribute some dishes, for 
I’m sure you’ll like to have your own, in case you 
ever entertain. And I have a small kerosene 
stove I’ll let you use, if Mrs. Hawthorne isn’t 
afraid of fire; it’s really quite safe. You can boil 
water and make tea on it, or candy, if you watch 
it and don’t let it boil over.” 

“Isn’t she the duckiest duck of a mother!” 
cried Isabel hugging this Lady Bountiful of the 
Understanding Heart. “You see we can sort of 
keep house.” 

“And my mother has a cot bed she’s going to 

[ 52 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

let us have for a couch, with a cover thrown over 
it, so if anything happened we could stay right 
there, over night, one or two of us!” Prue added. 

“We’ll have to make a lot of trips to haul this 
all up on the buckboard, but we can take our time 
at it,” said Mark. 

4 ‘I’m perfec’ly willing to lend my horse, but I 
don’t want him tired out,” said Poppy with much 
dignity. 

“ We’ll all walk beside him and sing to him as 
we march, Pops,” said Mark, as Isabel and Prue 
chuckled over Poppy’s magnificence. 

It did require many trips, but the loads were 
light, and even Poppy was satisfied that the 
effort was not too much for Hurrah’s health since 
they themselves bore up well trotting along be- 
side him. 

Mrs. Wayne had an old rug that gave the last 
touch of completeness to the Club Room. They 
spread it in the middle of the room, and though 
it did not reach far in either direction, as Prue 
pointed out, it made the room look quite differ- 
ent than it would if the floor had been entirely 
bare. 

With the cot set up and spread with a faded 
striped cover, and the chairs carefully set in care- 
less positions, as if they had just been used, and 
the table with books on its four corners and a 

[ 58 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


checkerboard and steeple chase and a box of 
Lotto, and Authors on the shelf underneath, and 
an inkstand and paper and pens and pencils 
placed exactly in the middle of the table top, 
the room looked as though there might be a 
reason for calling it a Club Hoorn. If there were 
such reason the children had no notion of what 
it was. There was a Club Room, but in no true 
sense was there a club. 

“You may come in to see it, Motherkins,” said 
Mark, as Mrs. Hawthorne peeped in at the door, 
asking if she might see what they had done. “Of 
course we do want you to see it, but we shall ask 
you to come formally, you and daddy, and Mrs. 
Wayne and Mrs. Lindsay — our Benefactors’ 
Day, it will be, and then you must try to feel as 
if you hadn’t seen it before. But come right in; 
we say it looks nifty; what do you say?” 

“Nifty indeed!” cried Motherkins admiringly. 
“Why, it’s a regular treasure house of grandeur! 
And it’s in bad taste to have everything spick and 
span new, as if you were all varnished, and never 
had anything in all your lives before! I see that 
the fastening is off that window, but that doesn’t 
matter.” 

“Oh, dear, no; nobody will bother these win- 
dows,” said Mark confidently. 

“Your father could put a fastening on,” 
[ 54 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

Motherkins went on, as if not satisfied to feel 
that the window could not be fastened. 

“Little Motherkins- wee is afraid some one will 
creep in here and carry her off,” chanted Isabel, 
catching Mrs. Hawthorne around the waist and 
making her dance. 

“Because she’s so little and so nice, nice nice!” 
Poppy joined in the song, dancing around Isabel 
and Motherkins, waving her hands to the rhythm. 

The children all treated Motherkins as if she 
were a superior sort of toy. 

“No fear of any one getting into the Club 
Room,” said Mark again. 

And this showed exactly how much he knew 
about it! 


[ 55 ] 






CHAPTER IV 


THE CLOUD IN THE SKY 

S AY, Isa, I’m perfectly sure something is 
bothering dad,” Mark said drawing his brow 
into an anxious knot. 

“So am I,” Isabel agreed. “He thinks and 
thinks, not pleasant thoughts. He frowns and 
looks straight through you as if you were cheese- 
cloth, and he is pale. You don’t suppose he is 
sick, and knows it, and is worrying about you and 
Motherkins?” 

“Oh, no-o-o!” Mark shook his head so hard 
that the negative came out in syllables. “There’s 
nothing like that the matter! I can always tell 
when dad doesn’t feel well. It’s bother. I 
wonder what can be worrying him now, when 
everything has come out so just right!” 

Isabel and Mark were on their way to get 
certain flower seeds which Motherkins needed to 
plant her old fashioned flower garden with all 
the kinds of flowers which she had grown in that 
same garden long before Mark was born. Then 
this great house had been her home ; in the mean- 

[ 57 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


time it had been lost to her, and now that she had 
got it back through the return of her lost son, 
with a modest fortune with which to buy the old 
place back, she was happily restoring her beloved 
garden in its old place, with its old flowers. 

The children had offered to help Motherldns 
with her planting. Prue stayed with Poppy, 
getting ready the seeds already on hand, while 
Isabel and Mark went to supply deficiencies 
from the store and also to buy a new hoe and rake 
“to tuck them into the bed,” Mark said. 

They came back sooner than they were ex- 
pected, each with a long-handled tool over their 
shoulder, and quite breathless and heated from 
hurrying. 

Their haste was explained by the pasteboard 
box which Mark carried by its tape handle. It 
was a treat for the stay-at-homes — strawberry 
and vanilla! — to square accounts; Isa and he had 
eaten their cream in the drug store and did not 
want to take advantage of their friends. 

Isabel and Mark sipped cold water and 
watched Prue and Poppy eat their ice cream, 
recovering breath meanwhile. Then all four 
went out and began to dig and hoe vigorously in 
the garden that lay under the eastern wall of the 
house under the direct rays of the morning sun, 
[ 58 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

in the best possible place for the well-being of 
flowers. 

It had grown warm as the sun mounted. The 
dining room windows were open and Mother- 
kins sat in one of them studying a seedsman’s 
catalogue when her son came into the room. 

She looked up to greet him, and must have 
been struck by the troubled look on his face which 
the children had been seeing, for they, working 
below the window in the garden, heard her ex- 
claim in a startled voice: 

“Why, Gilbert, dear, what is wrong? You 
look distressed!” 

Mr. Hawthorne dropped wearily into a chair 
opposite to her and rumpled his hair in a way 
he had when things went wrong. Then he rum- 
pled Semp’s hair; he had come after him and was 
leaning against him. 

“Oh, distressed is a strong word, small 
mother!” he said laughing at her with no sound 
of merriment in the laugh. “I’m all right.” 

“Aren’t you going to tell me about it, Gil- 
bert?” said Motherkins quietly, as if he had said 
that he was not all right. “I have noticed that 
you looked anxious, as if something were on your 
mind, for several days, but when you came in 
just now you startled me. You’d better tell me, 
dear.” 


[ 59 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“You’re a great little woman for seeing what 
lies behind people’s foreheads!” said her son. 
“When I was a child you always knew what I 
didn’t tell you quite as well as what I told! I re- 
member believing firmly that you had a sort of 
X-ray wireless apparatus — only I couldn’t have 
called it that — which looked through me and 
caught my thoughts. Well, then, I’ll own up ! I 
have been somewhat troubled for a few days over 
what must prove to be nonsense, and to-day I 
had a letter that increased the worry.” 

“A letter from ?” Motherkins waited for 

him to complete her sentence. 

“From a firm of lawyers of shady reputation 
as to honor, but with a reputation for skill in 
winning cases by their tricks. I have been keep- 
ing off telling you, but I suppose you’ve got to 
know.” Mr. Hawthorne looked disgusted, but 
he settled back in his chair to tell the story, pull- 
ing Semp’s ears as he talked. 

“You know, mother, I saved the life of young 
Maurice Ditson. He was the son of James Dit- 
son, who was the wealthy manufacturer — you 
know all that, and how to prove his gratitude Mr. 
Ditson left me all the money Mark and I have, 
except Mark’s small inheritance from his mother. 
Well, Maurice Ditson turned out so badly that 
I’m afraid if his father had lived to know about 
[ 60 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

it he’d hare felt that it would have been better 
if I hadn’t saved his son, that it would have been 
better if he had died innocent rather than lived 
to disgrace his father’s honorable name. In any 
case, Maurice could spend all that his father and 
several other millionaires could give him, and he 
wants now to get away from me the money his 
father left to me. He’s trumped up a tale that 
is too long to go into, that would set aside the 
will, if it could be proved. He’s engaged Sharp 
and Geiger to take the case, and they have plenty 
of skill and no conscience at all. So I don’t 
know! It’s an outrageous attempt, of course, 
but that’s not saying it may not succeed, and if 

it does ” Gilbert Hawthorne paused and 

looked at his mother. 

“If it does,” she said, “we shall lose this dear 
place and be poor again?” 

“Oh, mother dear, that’s exactly what would 
happen!” cried Gilbert. 

“Let us hope and pray that the wickedness will 
be foiled. It would be cruelly hard when we are 
so happy, so gratefully, cloudlessly happy in our 
old home! Somehow I think the plot can’t suc- 
ceed. But in any case I have you, my son; 
nothing can take from me my greatest joy in 
having you again. And with you our dear lad, 
who seems to give me you again twice over! So 

[ 61 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

at the worst I shall not be as I was before, heart- 
broken, alone! You must do all that may be 
done to prevent this dishonesty from succeeding, 
dear, and after that we will try not to worry,” 
said the brave little mother. 

“You little wonder!” cried her son, jumping 
up to pick his small mother up bodily and hug 
her hard in his relief that she took his dreaded 
revelation so quietly. “You may be sure I’ll do 
all I can to defeat Maurice Ditson! Why, 
mother, the few thousands his father left me, 
and which the fine old fellow wanted me to have 
— and more! — was nothing out of the great for- 
tune which he left Maurice, and which he has 
already wasted!” 

“No. Mr. Ditson was deeply indebted to you; 
it was justice to prove his gratitude. Well, dear, 
in the meantime the garden is to be sown, I hope 
for us to enjoy, but whatever is to come, to-day 
the garden is to be sown and planted! Will you 
help us? Try to put this whole dismal matter 
out of your mind. It is a lovely day to be making 
a garden!” 

Little Mrs. Hawthorne arose as she spoke and 
crossed over to gather up from the table the 
boxes into which Prue and Poppy had put the 
envelopes of seeds which they had assorted. She 
was a tiny woman, almost like a creature all soul 
[ 62 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

and no body, but the spirit in that little frame 
was high and brave; it knew how to meet pros- 
perity or misfortune. 

The children beneath the window had clearly 
heard every word that had been said by the 
mother and son. They had made no pretense 
of working, but had stood listening, horror- 
stricken, to what had been said. 

Now Mark, white-faced, with blazing eyes, 
threw down the hoe upon which he had been 
leaning. 

“It can’t happen, you know!” he whispered 
hoarsely. “It would be too awful. It can’t pos- 
sibly happen.” 

“But you know, Jack-in-the-Box, the things 
too awful to happen are the ones that do happen, 
quite often. It frightens me!” said Isabel, and 
her dilated eyes showed that it did frighten her. 

“If you had to leave this dear, dear old 

house ” began Prue, looking grim, but 

Poppy interrupted her with a scream of rage, 
dancing up and down in a frenzy. 

“We won’t, we sha’n’t, we won’t!” she cried. 
“We’ll get guns and drag ’em up the secret pas- 
sage! We’ll boil water and pour it on ’em! 
We’ll chuck ’em in the cellar with straw on top 
’em and set ’em afire! Let ’em try to take this 
house! And if they took it I’d earn money for 

[ 63 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Mis’ Hawthorne, ’nough, tool I’ll get that nice 
glass bottle man, what deals in ’em, over to 
Hertonsburg, what picked me up the day I went 
off, long ago, last year, and took me home to his 
house, to show me how to make money out of 
bottles, or something. His wife was awful smart 
— and nice. I’ll take boarders. Oh, Mark, 
Mark — Oh, Motherkins, Mr. Daddy, don’t let 
’em take your money and your life!” 

Poppy hurled herself upon little Motherkins 
and her son as they came into the garden, end- 
ing her appeal with a form of words which she 
must have somewhere heard and retained. 

“Oh, dear, we forgot the children, especially 
Poppy!” said Mrs. Hawthorne in dismay. “Of 
course they heard every word ! Poppy, child, it’s 
far better to be poor than not to be able to control 
yourself. You must learn to be quiet. You are 
shaking and are cold! None of us is excited. 
You never will be helpful, a useful, wise, strong 
woman, if you fly off like a Fourth of July 
sparkler over everything that stirs you. But I 
know it is because you love me.” 

Motherkins stooped to stroke the frizzy, flam- 
ing hair and to kiss the quivering face. 

“All little Motherkins’ pills are sugar 
coated,” laughed Mark. 

Poppy choked, and shook, and swallowed hard 
[ 64 ] 


■ 



t 


wrrrrrri 



i ZMbp i Jn 

' rr ~cH&s If 


Sr 1 



SO THEY WENT OX SOWING THE WHOLE GARDEN FULL OF OLD 
FASHIONED FLOWERS. 



/ 




» 






































« 


■i • - 







THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

for a few moments, while Motherkins continued 
to soothe and smooth her. Then she straightened 
herself and said: 

“I will, I will, honest to goodness, I will! I’ll 
keep the lid on. That time I ran off and stopped 
over night to Mr. Thomas Burke’s, my nice 
bottle man’s — 906 North Street, Hertonsburg, is 
where ’tis — he told me I’d be fine if I’d only keep 
the lid on, so I shall. I’d love to have you poor 
if I could earn tons of money and give it to you, 
to sorter pay back.” 

“I shouldn’t be poor, Poppy dear, if you gave 
me tons of money,” laughed Motherkins. “Don’t 
worry, child! You are too little a girl to worry, 
and I’m sure we shall all be happy till the stars 
have eaten up the moon because it is made of 
green cheese!” 

The four children laughed over this sugges- 
tion, then Prue frowned and began to say: “But 
it isn’t, you know, Mrs. Hawthorne,” when 
Mark drowned her out, crying: 

“They’ve begun to nibble at it already, 
Motherkins! There’s only a half piece in the 
sky; I saw it last night. Does the Dog Star — 
Sirius — eat the most?” 

“Silly thing!” said Poppy, with a grown-up 
manpner. “There’s terrible much place for 
garden everywheres on this place. I wish I could 

[65] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


have a piece to raise stuff to sell, if we get poor.’’ 

“Why, so you may!” cried Mr. Hawthorne, 
kindly refraining from pointing out the fact that 
if they became poor the place would no longer 
be theirs. 

“Help yourself, Poppy! Pick out the spot 
you like best and I’ll have it dug up for you and 
raked smooth and we’ll see what sort of a farmer 
you’ll be.” 

“I’ll be a very good raiser, I know that, be- 
cause I ain’t lazy,” said Poppy, with no mock 
modesty. “If you want to raise things you’ve 
got to work like everything, that’s what you have. 
And I ain’t — am not lazy.” 

“We could help you,” remarked Isabel wist- 
fully, her eyes and voice betraying how much she 
would like a share in this enterprise. 

“Mr. Dadde,” as Isa used to call Mark’s father 
when she first knew him because his name was a 
secret and she only knew Mark’s name for him — 
Daddy, “Mr. Dadde” saw that Isabel envied 
Poppy her promised garden, and he also saw 
what profitable pleasure there might be in a 
garden apiece for them all. 

“Instead of helping Poppy, why don’t each of 
you take a piece of land and see what you can 
get out of it? I’ll spade the gardens myself, four 
of them, each wherever its owner prefers it, and 
[ 66 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

then do whatever you like, each of you; plant 
what you please, make your garden the kind 
you’d rather have. We’d have a sort of county 
fair of our own when they all got bearing!” he 
said. 

“Say, daddy!” cried Mark struck with ad- 
miration. 

“I’d perfectly love it!” Isabel spoke with bated 
breath. Immediately she added: “And I’d raise 
mignonette and sweet peas in mine ” 

“Me for lettuce!” shouted Prue excitedly. 

“Radishes! Red ’uns, like me!” shouted 
Poppy. “And peas — to eat, not your no-good 
kind, Isa.” 

“Well, string beans seem about all I can 
choose,” said Mark. “I suppose as long as I’m 
Jack-in-the-Box I may as well be Jack and the 
Bean Stalk, too.” 

“Splendid!” cried Mr. Hawthorne. “No two 
alike, so each of you can be first in your own 
class. Come along and pick out garden sites.” 

“Oh, Gilbert, my poor flower seeds!” his 
mother remonstrated. 

“Well, daddy!” cried Mark. “Walk right off 
like that and leave tiny Motherkins to shift for 
herself! Come on, girls. I’ll make a trench and 
you come over the top and take it, and fill it up 
with whatever our General-in-chief, Motherkins, 

[ 67 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


says. We’ll pick out gardens after we plant this 
one. What’s in the front trench, General 
Motherkins? That’s the most dangerous line.” 

“Brave little dwarfs, Mark — candytuft. 
They’re not afraid of the enemy,” said Mother- 
kins entering into the play-work, and giv- 
ing the three little girls each a paper of seeds to 
scatter in the shallow trench which Mark made 
with a stick and stood ready to cover as they 
sowed. 

So they went on sowing in rows, in squares, 
in circles, the entire garden full of old-fash- 
ioned flowers, fragrant and modest, flaunting 
and graceful, tall and short, “Just as I used to 
have it years ago!” sighed Motherkins content- 
edly. Then she sighed again anxiously, remem- 
bering that Gilbert had said that it was possi- 
ble that she might lose again this beautiful old 
place, and that if it did happen the parting 
from it would this time be final. 

At last the garden was sown and all the seeds 
“tucked into their beds,” Isabel said. Dirty and 
tired, but with their enthusiasm unabated, the 
four children followed Mr. Hawthorne across 
the grass to inspect the various sites for possi- 
ble gardens. Semp — Semper Fidelis, living up 
to his name — Bunkie, and round, gray Pincush- 
ion, who adored Bunk, all of whom had 
[ 68 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

superintended the laying out of Motherkins’ gar- 
den, marched behind their human friends to seek 
for more gardens to lay out. 

There was considerable difference of opinion 
as to the best spots. The discussion stood in 
some danger of growing unpleasant because 
Poppy was tired enough to be more than ordi- 
narily inflammable, and Prue was tired enough 
to have less patience with her than ordinarily — 
and at best Prue had not great patience with 
excitable little Poppy. 

The decision was made easier by Isabel, the 
peacemaker, who suggested that it would be far 
pleasanter to have all four gardens close to- 
gether. 

“You see,” she said, in her sweet, soothing 
voice that always fell on the ear like the soft 
touch of a cool hand on a fevered head, “we’d be 
tired to death working and working when it got 
hot, all by ourselves, where we couldn’t call over 
to one another, back and forth. If Daddy-dear 
doesn’t mind, why not divide off that nicest east- 
erly field into quarters, and give us each a cor- 
ner quarter?” 

“Daddy dear” did not mind; he cordially ap- 
proved, and so it was done. By the next day 
the ground was plowed, harrowed and raked 

[ 69 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


fine, and the gardens, one exactly as good as the 
other, were apportioned. Thus the children were 
installed as gardeners, precisely as if there were 
no threat of the Hawthorne place being lost to 
its owners. 


CHAPTER Y 


“the lucky four” 

I SA, child, do you realize that you and I are 
growing to be merely calling acquaintances? 
That you are gone all day long, after your prac- 
tice and reading are done, and that we meet only 
at meals, sometimes not then? It is painful to 
see my only child slipping into a calling acquaint- 
ance, and to foresee that some day I may say: 
Miss Lindsay? Miss Isabel Lindsay? Oh, yes; I 
do know her! She calls on me occasionally; I 
do not return her calls.” 

Mrs. Lindsay tried to look pathetic, and suc- 
ceeded so well that Isabel, though she knew that 
her mother was playing with her, threw herself 
upon her with a rush and hugged her violently. 

“Mother, you darling, dreadful mother! You 
know I’m not so awful as that!” she cried. “But 
there’s so much, so very much to do !” 

“I had to try not to be pleased that school 
closed in April,” Mrs. Lindsay went on in a pen- 
sive tone as she smoothed her disordered gar- 

[ 71 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


ments. “It seemed wicked to be glad when the 
school had to close because so many children had 
measles, but I had to try hard not to be glad — 
and I’m not sure I succeeded! — because I was 
to have my daughter at home. And she deserts 
me! It is a blow. She gives me our twilight 
hour’s talk, but I may lose that.” 

“Mother, stop!” begged Isabel. “I know you 
don’t mean it, but it’s horrid, because it would 
be so horrid if you did mean it! You know I 
wouldn’t miss my hour for anything in the 
world! It’s the loveliest thing ever to sit down 
with you every night in the dusk and tell you 
every single thing that I’ve done all day! But, 
mother, only think all that we four have now! 
There’s the Club Boom, all our own, and we 
love it! And our gardens, and the things are 
poking right up since it came so warm after 
this rain! And the woods to go to, which we’ve 
got to love best of all, forever. And the secret 
passage, though we don’t like to go through it 
much; it’s so dark and damp and probably spi- 
dery, but it’s great to know it’s there, and it’s 
another of our places. And there’s Chateau 
Branche. We haven’t been up in it yet, but 
now it’s warm we thought we might go up and 
sit there this afternoon. Really, we are so busy! 
I think we are pretty lucky to have all these 
[ 72 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

places our own. We are a sort of society, or 
club, or something now; our name is The Lucky 
Four,’ and our badge is a four-leafed clover. 
I named us; isn’t it fine?” 

“Fine, indeed!” Mrs. Lindsay dropped her 
pretense of feeling abused, and sympathized with 
Isabel’s pleasure, which was also her own pleas- 
ure; the greatest joy she had was her beloved 
little girl’s happiness. 

“Are you going to Chateau Branche this aft- 
ernoon? Because if you are I’ve a fairly good- 
sized box of candy that might enjoy the Cha- 
teau, if you’d take it with you and open it there,” 
she said. 

“Mother, mother, there’s no other mother on 
earth like you!” Isabel declared, as she declared 
so often that it was like a refrain to a song that 
was hard to stop singing. “You think of such 
nice things!” 

“Candy?” queried Mrs. Lindsay. 

“And having it to take up into Chateau 
Branche to open there; that’s one of them,” Isa- 
bel tempestuously embraced her mother over 
again. “Now, I’ve got to go, duckie mother, 
or I’ll be late. Good-by till half-past five.” 

Isabel ran out calling: “Hoo-hoo-oo-oo,” for 
Prue to hear and join her. 

Prue heard ; she had been listening for the call, 

[ 73 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


and was ready to run the moment it fell on her 
ear. The two inseparable friends put their arms 
around each other and went on happily, chatter- 
ing as if they had parted a month before, instead 
of at dinner time. 

They met two little girls of their own age, 
schoolmates of theirs, who stopped them. 
Kathie Stevens, the taller of the two, moved 
and spoke energetically; she had a wilful face, 
with a snap in her eyes. Dolly Harding, her 
friend, was shorter, decidedly plump, with round 
features and a placid look that at the same time 
hinted of obstinacy. Dolly was inclined to be 
lazy, while Kathie was more energetic than was 
always pleasant. Prue and Isabel liked them, 
but they were too satisfied with each other and 
Mark — Poppy, too, added to their pleasure — to 
have much interest left to give any one else. 

“Hello, Prue ’n Isa!” cried Kathie as they 
came toward one another from opposite direc- 
tions. “Say, we saw that funny Poppy Meiggs 
just a while ago!” 

“Did you?” Isabel answered. “What made 
her funny?” 

“She is, all the time; she’s funny!” Kathie 
found it easier to repeat her statement than to 
explain it. “She said you’d got up a club.” 

“Well, kind of,” Prue admitted warily, fore- 

.[ 74 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

seeing danger. “It’s just us, same’s before, only 
we call it a club.” 

“Lucky Four, Pop said it was,” Kathie per- 
sisted. 

“Well, that’s what we call it,” Prue said, as 
if it might, nevertheless, be almost anything else. 

“Say, girls,” Kathie spoke so vehemently that 
the two words seemed to pop like corn on a pop- 
per, “say, let us be in it! Don’t be piggish with 
your club. Let us belong. We want to, don’t 
we, Doll?” 

“Surest thing in the world, we want to,” Dolly 
approved her. “We think you might. We’d 
like to know why not? We wouldn’t hurt it, 
would we? More the merrier!” 

“It wouldn’t be the Lucky Four if it was six,” 
said Isabel, uttering the first words that came 
into her head, to gain time. She knew instantly 
that she and Prue did not want Kathie and Dolly 
to join the club, and that Mark and Poppy would 
not want them; she was not at all sure that 
“more” would be “merrier,” but she had no idea 
of how to refuse the petition. 

“Oh, well, my gracious! Can’t we change the 
name? Lucky Six is just as good, even if you 
can’t have a four-leaf clover for the badge — 
Poppy said that’s what you took. Have six rings 
all hitched together, in a circle, like doughnuts, 

[ 75 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


for the badge. Just ’s good!” Kathie resumed 
her pleading. 

“I shouldn’t care about doughnuts for my 
club badge,” said Prue, coming to Isabel’s res- 
cue before she could speak again. She knew it 
was hard for Isa to say no to any one who wanted 
her to say yes, and Prue was afraid Isa’s tender- 
heartedness would give them two more club mem- 
bers on the spot unless she interfered. 

“We couldn’t let you join right off like this, 
Kathie. We’d have to put it to Mark and Poppy 
and let them vote on it, have a club meeting or 
something, to decide, you know. We’re not the 
whole club; we’re only half,” she said. 

Isabel looked at Prue with profound admira- 
tion. She certainly was the most sensible per- 
son ! And her sense kept her out of scrapes into 
which Isabel’s greater sweetness, her sensitive 
desire to make everything pleasant, often landed 
her. 

“Well, I suppose that’s fair,” Kathie admit- 
ted grudgingly. “We’ll go right along with you 
now and put it up to Mark and Poppy, then we’ll 
know how it went.” 

“Oh, but clubs have to vote by themselves; 
only members there. You mustn’t come unless 
we let you belong,” Prue cried. 

Dolly set her chin in a way she had that meant 

[ 76 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

she had first set her mind. “It isn’t so much of 
a club. We’re going now,” she said. 

And go they did, Kathie taking Prue by the 
arm, Dolly linking herself with Isabel with so 
much decision that poor Prue and Isa saw no 
way to prevent what they felt was an unwar- 
rantable intrusion. 

Mark and Poppy would be waiting for them 
at Chateau Branche; not in it, for they would 
be sure to wait for Isabel and Prue to help them 
up, and not choose places till they were there to 
choose fairly. There was one side of the plat- 
form in the tall pine tree, which was the chil- 
dren’s beloved summer house, that was not quite 
level, and these four honorable comrades were 
all equally anxious not to get the best of one an- 
other. So Mark and Poppy would surely wait 
till they had all assembled bo mount together into 
their beautiful perch. 

“This is the first time this year,” said Prue, as 
they came through the spring-green woods and 
espied the tree, with Mark and Poppy waiting 
beside it, as they had expected. 

“I know it is,” said Isabel, her voice answer- 
ing in its mournful tone Prue’s meaning, which 
was: “The first time this year, and Dolly and 
Kathie here!” 

“Well, hello, Dolly; hello, Kathie,” said Mark, 

[ 77 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


striving to greet the guests politely, but unable 
to greet them cordially. 

Poppy frowned openly. “It’s a club now,” she 
remarked. 

“We met the girls,” Prue at once plunged into 
an explanation to give Mark a clew to what had 
happened. “They want to join our club — we’d 
have to change the name, of course. And we said 
we couldn’t let ’em without talking to you. So 
they came along. I told them we had to meet 
first.” 

Kathie saw the dismay that Mark could not 
keep out of his eyes, and that Poppy fairly glow- 
ered, looking ready to do more. 

“You let us join this,” she said instantly, “and 
we’ll do something for you. We’ll kind of be- 
long hitched on, not inside, so you can keep on 
being the Lucky Four, if you want to. That 
can be the real club, and we’ll be — I don’t know 
what we’d call it — just kind of belong, hitched 
on. And I’ve got a whole nice, awful nice, col- 
lection of old coins. I don’t want ’em, but they’re 
perfectly fine; I know that. You and Prue and 
Isa love history, Mark, so you’d be crazy over 
’em. Some of ’em were Roman emperors’ 
money ; pretty near two thousand years old, they 
are. I’ll divide ’em up with you three — Poppy 
wouldn’t care any more’n I do for ’em — and I 
[ 78 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

won’t keep one myself, if you’ll let Doll and I — 
Doll and me — into the club. How’s that? We 
could pretend the coins were the club’s treasure !” 

“Is that bribery, Mark?” asked Isabel. 

“N-no,” Mark decided slowly. “It’s a fair 
offer. It’s kind of like tribute paid to the king 
to be allowed to belong to his kingdom. That’s 
all right. I’d love the coins. But, honestly, 
Kathie, you see this is just ourselves, and we 
have such nice times! It’s kind of risky to let 
in some one else. Suppose we let you come on 
trial? I don’t want to let any one in for keeps 
till we know how it works.” 

“But he doesn’t want to be selfish with our 
lovely times, and we do like you both, you know 
that,” Isabel hastily interposed with her smile 
that always disarmed wrath, for she saw that 
Kathie looked indignant, and that Dolly was 
by no means pleased. 

“Everybody keeps their own house for them- 
selves, no matter if ’tis nice, and they are happy.* 
They don’t take in boarders, just ’cause it’s nice,” 
said Poppy, her meaning only too plainly show- 
ing through her figure of speech. 

“Oh, well, on trial,” said Prue. “Want to join 
that way, girls?” 

“All right. Any way you say,” agreed 
Kathie, banishing her annoyance. “You’ll like 

[ 79 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


us; we’ll be good clubbers. And I’D bring the 
coins to-morrow.” 

“Just to look at. We wouldn’t let you divide 
them till you are taken in,” said Mark firmly, as 
if he were afraid that he might be tempted. 

“Now, let’s get up,” said DoDy, weary of wait- 
ing so long to get her way. 

The children clambered up into Chateau 
Branche. Mark’s father had improved its en- 
trance by footholds of wood nailed to the side 
of the tree ; last year the climb had been difficult 
for the girls. 

“O my! It’s worth more than coins to come 
here!” cried Kathie, catching her breath delight- 
edly. 

“We just love it,” said Isabel, softening 
toward the intruder when she found her so en- 
thusiastic. “But we have company here. You 
could come here, if you didn’t belong, and with- 
out any coins.” 

It was beautiful. No one could have resisted 
its loveliness. Lying back on their abundant 
pillows, the children looked up through the dark 
green pine, now pungent with the spring scent 
of newly mounted, resinous sap, to see the flecks 
of deep blue that were revealed as the branches 
moved in the breeze. Birds hopped about, most 
of them bits of motion, rather than color or 
[ 80 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

shape, so thick were the pine needles, so heavy 
the shadows. But close above the branches 
which held Chateau Branche robins were darting 
in and out, nest-building. At first they doubted 
the children, discussing them between themselves 
with sharp chirps and nervous tail twitching, but 
finally they decided that human beings who had 
bird habits and nested in trees must be trust- 
worthy, and resumed their work without any 
more delay. It was easy to see, by the short time 
between their trips after supplies and the rapid 
way they tucked those supplies into the growing 
nest, that there was no time to lose. For a long 
time — a long time for six children to be still — no 
one spoke. Then Isabel said softly: 

“It would be nice to be dead and lying out 
under the trees, all quiet and lovely, among birds 
and grass and flowers, if only your body could 
know it was there, wouldn’t it be?” 

“Oh, Isabel!” cried Dolly, in strong protest 
and horror. 

But Mark smiled at Isabel and nodded. 

“I’ve thought that, too, Isa,” he said. “But 
we can have it all and be alive; that’s still bet- 
ter.” 

“Mother gave me a box of candy to open,” 
said Isa, sitting up and throwing off her dreams 
by an effort that showed. 


[ 81 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


She produced the box, two pounds, and the 
six fell upon it as if Chateau Branche were a 
desert island on which they had been ship- 
wrecked without food for days. 

It doesn’t take long to do away with two 
pounds of candy when there are six to eat it; 
after all, that is only a wee bit over five ounces 
apiece! Mrs. Lindsay had not reckoned on the 
extra two. When the candy was gone the spell 
of the quiet woods seemed broken; Kathie and 
Dolly grew restless and wanted to go down 
again. 

“You cant keep quiet a whole afternoon,” 
said Kathie. 

“We do. We read and talk and just sit and 
look. We never get tired,” said Prue disap- 
provingly. 

But they all came down, Mark with Pincush- 
ion on his shoulder in the fashion of the preced- 
ing summer when Isabel and Prue had first 
known him and Pincushion had been a kitten. 
Bunkie was waiting for them, and they all wan- 
dered slowly through the woods, toward the 
Hawthorne house. 

“Show us the Club Room, too; Pops said you 
had a club room,” said Dolly. 

“We have,” said Mark. “This way, then.” 

He led the way through the house, into the 

[ 82 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

room at its rear which the children claimed. It 
was furnished abundantly with the contributions 
from the families which had helped it to comple- 
tion, albeit the odds and ends effect was some- 
what queer, decidedly odds-and-endish. 

‘‘Now, I like this!” cried Kathie delightedly. 
“Isn’t it great to have this all our own? And 
dishes! Why, what fun! I’m going to give a 
party here — just us members!” she added, see- 
ing disapproval of her instant taking posses- 
sion gathering on the other faces. “You could 
climb up outside. Why don’t you come in that 
way always? Lots nicer.” 

“Isabel and I like the stairs,” said Prue 
primly. 

Poppy looked for the first time as if she found 
Kathie an addition to the club ranks. 

“We will,” she said. “Us, anyway, Kathie.” 

“Let’s be the Lucky Four and a Half — six, 
you know!” cried Dolly. 

“We’ll see,” Mark said cautiously. “Maybe 
yes; maybe no. But you come and try. We 
don’t want things happening here to change it.” 

But Mark was to discover things happening 
there, and that soon. 


[ 83 ] 






CHAPTER VI 


THE DEAR HOUSE 

D OLLY and Kathie did not appear the next 
day. “The Lucky Four” had been sure 
that they would come, they were so delighted 
with the idea of the club and so anxious to belong 
to it. 

It was the second day before they came, how- 
ever. Isabel, Prue, Mark and Poppy were work- 
ing hard in their gardens. Poppy always 
worked hard in hers; it seemed doubtful if any- 
thing planted in it could escape being hoed up, 
so hard and so recklessly did she weed it. 

Kathie and Dolly came across the grass toward 
the workers so slowly, and Kathie’s face was so 
flushed and woe-begone that Isabel noticed it 
and called: “What’s the matter?” as soon as she 
could make Kathie hear. 

“Nothing. Aren’t you going up to the club 
room?” Kathie called back. 

“We’re going to work out here exactly one 
hour; we’ve been at it twenty minutes, only, so 

[ 85 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


you may as well find the nicest seat on the ground 
there is and wait for us,” said Mark. 

“Oh, my land ! More’n half an hour!” groaned 
Kathie, but Dolly bumped down under a tree, 
where the grass grew thick, and, picking a blade, 
began to blow on it without wasting time on 
argument. 

“Why don’t you leave it, and do it in the 
morning before it gets hot?” Kathie asked impa- 
tiently. 

“We work one hour in the morning, one in the 
afternoon, Miss Stevens, for we are out after 
first-class gardens,” Mark answered loftily. 

“If I had a hoe I’d help, then you’d get 
through sooner,” said Kathie. 

“No, you wouldn’t — thanks just the same,” 
Priie spoke with decision. “Nobody who hadn’t 
planted it could tell what to dig up when things 
are starting. I wouldn’t let any one loose to dig 
my garden for the world.” 

“You might think I was a hen!” grumbled 
Kathie, throwing herself down beside Dolly and 
joining in her blade of grass solo with a louder, 
shriller blade. 

“Bet you didn’t bring those cones!” exclaimed 
Poppy, who had been eyeing the pair sharply. 

“Did, too; here they are.” Kathie motioned 
to a box which she had carried as if it were 
[ 86 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

heavy. “They’re not cones; they’re coins, Poppy 
Meiggs, and I got them; they are here. I won’t 
open them till we’re in the club room, and then 
I’ll tell you something.” 

“We’ll be as quick as we can, Kathie,” said 
Isabel. 

“We can’t be quicker than twenty minutes, be- 
cause we said we’d work an hour, and we can’t 
stop sooner.” Prue was the firm person who 
made this announcement. “Jack-in-the-Box 
keeps the time; we're wasting some.” 

One worker in each corner of the lot given 
over to these gardeners, the hoes dug fast from 
this moment in a silence broken only by the dread- 
ful cries of the grass blowers, getting horrible 
sounds, now high, now low, from the helpless 
blades. 

“Time’s up!” Mark announced at last, looking 
at his wrist watch. “Say, it’s a whole lot easier 
to eat vegetables than it is to raise them!” 

“I guess it is! I’ve got a crick in my back 
from my neck all the way to my heels,” Prue 
said, straightening herself with a heavy sigh. 

“Quite a long back, Prue. You’ll be tall when 
you’re grown up,” remarked Isa. 

“It begins as a crick in my back. I suppose 
it gets to be cramp in my legs after a while. 

[ 87 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Let’s make lemonade in our glasses in the Club 
Room,” Prue suggested. 

“No lemons, no sugar! I’ll go buy ’em,” cried 
Poppy, tired, but always ready to do errands. 

“But there are! Both things, Pops; I took 
them there yesterday. There are nice lemons, 
the plump, smooth kind,, and two pounds of 
sugar.” Prue enjoyed the triumph of her fore- 
sightedness, though the rest expected Prue to 
think of things of this sort. 

The six children went toward the house, the 
workers mopping their crimson faces, Kathie 
and Dolly still blowing grass till Isabel, warm 
and tired, begged them to stop. 

“All right; I don’t like it myself, much, but 
it’s something you keep right on doing, once you 
start, though I get awful sick of it before long,” 
said Dolly, amiably throwing away her grass 
blade. 

“I’m going to climb in,” announced Kathie, 
surveying the balcony, which was built out from 
one of the windows of the Club Room, and the 
roof of the piazza, which ran all along the rear 
of the house, below the room. 

“Oh, don’t, Kathie! The posts may be weak,” 
protested Isabel. 

“’Course they’re not!” Kathie maintained. “I 
love to climb. Now, you all watch me go up! 

[ 88 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

Here, some one, take my box. Don’t lose it; it’s 
the coins. Now, watch!” Kathie spat on her 
hands like a boy, but she went up the piazza post 
and swung on the balcony like a monkey. Wrig- 
gling her body expertly, she got herself into posi- 
tion to catch the top of the balcony rail, from 
which it was no feat to get over and open the 
window into the club room. 

“Hey-yeh, pokies, I’m in! Hurry up if you’re 
coming through the house!” she called down. 

The others made haste to join her by the usual 
way, and the moment that she got inside the door 
Prue made a dash for her lemons, while Poppy 
caught up the club’s own private and particular 
water pitcher, and ran off for water. 

“Do show us the coins, Kathie,” said Mark. 
“I’m wild to see them.” 

“Well, I will,” began Kathie slowly. “But, 
look here! You said you wouldn’t divvy them 
up till I regularly belonged? Well, if I never 
divvied, couldn’t I belong?” 

“Oh, oh! Injun giver!” exclaimed a frown- 
ing Poppy, appearing in the doorway with a 
steaming water pitcher, spilling its contents over 
the top. 

“No, honest; no, I’m not!” Kathie cried 
eagerly. “But my father says I can’t give them 
away, and so I can’t. ’Tisn’t my fault. I’d do 

[ 89 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


it in a jiffy, but if he says I can’t, why, how 
can I?” 

“Thought they were yours!” observed Prue, 
disgustedly, not because she cared the least bit 
for the coins, but because she thought she had 
caught Kathie pretending. 

“They are mine. But they aren’t mine to do 
what I please with; not now,” Kathie was quick 
to explain. “They were left to me, in a will; 
some one father knew left ’em. They are mine, 
but father says I can’t do one thing with them 
till I’m grown up and can tell a hawk from a 
handsaw. That’s what he said; I don’t know 
what he meant, but I suppose that’s two kinds 
of coins. I’ll show you how they are; they’re 
awful old! Some of ’em go all the way back to 
Julius Caesar and to old Egypt.” 

“Oh, Kath, honest!” cried Mark, instantly ex- 
cited; he was studying Caesar with his father, 
out of school, and the great Roman was one of 
his heroes — Mark had many heroes, and so had 
Isabel. 

Kathie opened the case that held the coins and 
began laying them out on the table. 

“I couldn’t bring all. This isn’t half, but it 
was so heavy Dolly and I had to keep shifting 
hands; she helped me carry them,” Kathie said. 

“We know it’s heavy; we carried it up stairs,” 
[ 90 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

said Prue, coming over with the brown paper 
bag of sugar in her hands. “They’re not so 
much; just pieces of money. Our money’ll be 
nice ages from now.” 

“Lots of people think it’s pretty nice now,” 
laughed Isabel. “I think these coins are per- 
fectly wonderful ! Only think, when this one was 
made in England George Washington was a lit- 
tle boy ” 

“Cutting down a cherry tree!” Prue inter- 
rupted her unexpectedly. “What of it if he was? 
We all know he had to be a little boy first. I 
think it’s silly to make a fuss over that! Like it 
very sweet, Kath and Doll? I don’t want to put 
in so much sugar that it stays at the bottom.” 

“I guess I like it same as the rest,” said Kathie, 
and Dolly also thought that she did. 

“Oh, Mark, Mark, please see! This one is 
Queen Elizabeth ! Shakespeare had one like this 
in his pocket, most likely!” sighed Isabel, almost 
tearful from emotion. 

“He didn’t have much money in his pocket, did 
he?” laughed Mark. “Yes, Isa; it does make you 
feel funny, doesn’t it? But only see this one! 
Caesar!” 

“You didn’t say whether it made any differ- 
ence about my belonging, now I can’t divide up 
the coins,” hinted Kathie anxiously. 


[ 91 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“Oh, it won’t; it isn’t your fault,” said Dolly 
easily. “And I’m going to belong, and I haven’t 
one thing to do with the coins.” 

“We thought we’d call it half-membership for 
awhile. Then we can go either way with the 
other half. That’s fair, not to decide too soon, 
isn’t it?” Isabel’s voice betrayed her anxiety not 
to offend Kathie and Dolly. 

“I’ve thought of such a splendid plan! There’s 
the secret passage into this house! Nobody, 
hardly, knows about it, and nobody ever goes into 
it. Put the box down there — it’s as safe as safe; 
safer than in any house — and let’s play it is 
buried treasure. We could have lots of fun 
knowing it was there and keeping it secret. Will 
you do that, Kathie?” 

“And I belong?” Kathie would not yield her 
point. 

“Y-es, but half-membership !” said Isabel, and 
Kathie accepted the terms. 

“Well, this lemonade certainly does taste 
fine!” said Dolly, sipping hers with a spoon and 
letting the refreshing drops trickle down her 
throat. “I’d rather have this than the coins!” 

“They’re different,” Kathie needlessly re- 
marked. “Both are good, I guess; I can tell 
more about lemonade myself. Doll, we’ve got 
[ 92 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

to get back. Didn’t your mother say something 
about your getting dressed early?” 

“Oh, mercy! ’Course she did! Her aunt, my 
great aunt, is coming, and I’ve got to be fixed 
up ; mother’s terribly anxious to please her. And 
she’s as big as a haystack and just as deaf! Come 
on, Kathie; mother’ll never forgive me if I don’t 
get to the station to meet her.” Indolent Dolly 
sighed with real dismay at the prospect before 
her and slowly got on her feet. 

“I’ll take you down,” said Poppy, with a splen- 
did air of young ladyhood. “I can harness my 
horse myself now; he’s just as gentle as a cream 
peppermint, and I’ll drive you home.” 

“Maybe we would get there quicker if we 
walked ; maybe he is as slow as a cream pepper- 
mint!” cried Kathie cruelly. 

“Then walk ’f you think so!” cried Poppy, 
angry in an instant. “Hurrah is a lovely, lovely 
horse, and he goes like everything! Just walk! 
Serves you right!” 

“You harness and let me go, too, Pops! Show 
them how Hurrah trots,” whispered Isa into 
Poppy’s burning ear. “Take us all down; Prue, 
too, and meet Mr. Dadde and bring him home. 
He’s coming on the 4.30 train.” 

“All right, Isa, for you I will. Not for any 
one who consults Hurrah,” said Poppy. She 

[93] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

meant “insults Hurrah,” but Isabel did not cor- 
rect her. 

It was true that Poppy had learned to harness 
her pet. She was small for her not-great age/ 
and had to stand on a box to do it, but Hurrah 
knew, like the good and intelligent creature that 
he really was, that a small girl must be consid- 
ered. He put down his head for the bridle, and 
moved over exactly as Poppy bade him, she 
meanwhile straining her arms over his back, but 
refusing help, for her joy in Hurrah and being 
about him increased with each day. 

The five little girls piled on the buckboard, 
leaving to Mark, who was not going with them, 
the task of placing the box of coins in the secret 
passage. 

Bunkie jumped up beside Isa as a matter of 
course; the small dog enjoyed and approved the 
sociable, springy buckboard with all his might. 

Poppy gathered up the lines and ordered Hur- 
rah to “get up,” with a dignity intended to show 
how many years she had driven spirited steeds. 

Hurrah had preserved through his two decades 
an excellent gait. As he trotted off down the 
driveway, and thence on down the street, Poppy 
glanced scornfully over her shoulder at Kathie 
and Dolly, as one who would say: 

“Now do you see?” yet disdained to say it. 

[ 94 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

But she did say as they drew near the Har- 
ding and Stevens houses, which stood next each 
other: 

“I hope I can stop him! You get off quick, 
girls, ’cause Hurrah hates to stand.” 

“Good-night. We’ll be right up to the club!” 
Kathie called back as Hurrah started up the 
instant they were off, as if he were young and 
impatient, but Isabel, sitting beside Poppy, saw 
the twitch that young jockey gave the lines. 

Isabel and Prue stayed with Poppy as she 
drove toward the station, instead of going 
straight home. It was understood between them 
and Mark that Poppy was not to be left alone 
with her horse; quiet though Greenacres streets 
were, Poppy was capable of getting into trouble 
in them. 

Mr. Hawthorne came from the train before 
they reached the station. He took off a new 
straw hat and waved it gayly at the children, but 
all six sharp eyes saw that the handsome face 
beneath the hat was grave and anxious. 

“Oh, dear Mr. Dadde, is it all right?” Isabel 
ventured to ask, after he had jumped on the 
buckboard and it had been turned around, a feat 
that always frightened Poppy more than it 
would have done had she realized that Hurrah 
attended to the doing of it himself, leaving noth- 

[ 95 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


ing to her. Evidently he had no more confidence 
in Poppy’s wisdom in directing him than she had 
herself. 

“Dear little Isa, we must try to feel that it is 
all right, but it looks as though it might not be 
as we want it to be,” said Mr. Hawthorne sadly. 
“My lawyers told me to-day that Maurice Dit- 
son has made out a case that promises success 
for him. He claims that his father’s will was 
not valid — I won’t try to explain to you how he 
proves it. My lawyers are sure that he is hiring 
false witnesses, that the whole thing is what they 
call ‘a frame up,’ fraud, you know! But the 
thing is to prove that it is fraud, and my lawyers 
seem to fear it may be more than difficult. If 
Maurice Ditson gets his case I lose the money 
his father left to me, and ” 

“The house? Oh, the house?” cried Isabel, 
clasping her hands. 

“The house. Not because Ditson can claim 
that, but because it would have to be sold ; I put 
some of the money into buying it.” Mr. Haw- 
thorne showed how hard this was to say. 

With a wail that made a man passL-g stop 
short and stare at them, Poppy burst out crying. 

“Hurrah, oh, Hurrah? Would my darling 
go?” she shrieked. 

“Perhaps we can keep him to help us to earn 
[ 96 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


our living, little Poppy,” said Mr. Hawthorne, 
smiling, though his eyes were profoundly sad. 

“I was so happy in putting my little mother 
back into her old home,” he added. 

“Oh, yes, oh, yes! And her garden, and the 
old flowers, and everything!” cried Isabel. “Oh, 
dear, Mr. Dadde, it can’t happen, it can’t pos- 
sibly happen ! But if it does, Motherkins has you 
and Mark, and that’s more than a house.” 

“I try to remember that, dear little loving 
heart!” Mr. Hawthorne’s smile for the child he 
dearly loved was tender and grateful. “I know, 
it is true.” 

“It is true,” said Prue dismally. “But, oh, 
the dear house!” 

“Ah, yes; the dear house!” echoed Isabel. 

“Oh, my jiminy, the dear house!” Poppy 
chimed in most tragically of all. 


[ 97 ] 




CHAPTER VII 


THE QUEER MAN 

M OTHER,” said Isabel with all the em- 
phasis she could get into her voice, “we 
want to sneak !” 

“Do you, dear? And can’t you?” asked Mrs. 
Lindsay with no apparent shock. 

Mr. Lindsay looked up from his paper with a 
laugh in his eyes; they were at breakfast and 
Isabel had followed up her announcement by 
corking her lips with the biggest, most luscious 
strawberry on her plate. 

“Just a general sneak, or a special sneak, do 
you crave. Miss Lindsay? Is it merely that you 
feel sneaking, or do you wish to sneak away from 
something?” Isabel’s father inquired. 

Isabel always said that she “loved the way her 
father treated her.” He used toward her a play- 
ful, exaggerated politeness that delighted her 
soul; needless to say, his love for this sole little 
girl left to him was far beyond expression in 
words. 


[ 99 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

“Well, Mr. Lindsay,” said Isabel, hastily dis- 
posing of the big strawberry and replying after 
his manner of asking, “it’s a special sneak. We 
want to get away to Chateau Branche without 
Kathie and Dolly. They’re nice, you know, but 
we did so like to be there by ourselves !” 

“I realize that I don’t know what I’m talking 
about, but why you have to take on new mem- 
bers of your Lucky Four Club, if you’d rather 
not, is beyond me,” said Mr. Lindsay. “I sup- 
pose it’s because you are all girls, all but Mark, 
and he can\ behave as he would if he weren’t 
muffled in girls, so to speak. Now, if boys had a 
club and didn’t care about new members, they’d 
say so, straight from the shoulder, not ill- 
naturedly, but honestly, and the would-be mem- 
bers would see that they were within their rights 
and take themselves off, unoffended. But you 
seem to feel obliged to be wax, and give in. It 
will end in a fuss — you see if it doesn’t! I want 
you to learn to take a stand firmly, but amiably, 
my dear, and, having taken it, stand pat on that 
stand!” Mr. Lindsay shook his head, as if this 
weakness in his Isa annoyed him. 

“But they do want awfully to belong,” said 
Isabel, “and it seems so mean to keep lovely 
things to yourself — though we are four selves! 

[ 100 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

Prue says we might as well take people to live 
with us because we have nice homes.” 

“Prue is a sensible little person,” Mrs. Lind- 
say said. “She’s always obliging, but she can tell 
clearly which are the boundaries of her own 
fields, to use a figure that seems to express what 
I mean. Prue is just, in a common-sense way, 
while my little lass gets weak-kneed, fearing to 
hurt some one when she steps out.” 

Mrs. Lindsay smiled most tenderly at Isabel, 
plainly finding her weakness very lovable. 

“Run right away as soon as you have finished 
those berries; get Prue and the Hawthorne house 
pair, and climb up into Chateau Branche so 
early that nobody else will be there — for a while, 
at least. That’s my advice this perfect June 
morning,” Mrs. Lindsay added. 

“And pull our legs up after us, so they won’t 
show?” cried Isabel gayly. “All right, mother- 
urns; you’re a dear to help me sneak.” 

“There is a cake,” remarked Mrs. Lindsay 
slowly. “A fresh, round, two-story-and-base- 
ment cake, made late yesterday for a possible trip 
to Chateau Branche. I think I’ll get it and put 
it in a box, with a knife to cut it, and send it 
with you on your sneaking trip.” 

“Oh, mother!” cried Isabel, rapidly eating her 

[ 101 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

juicy strawberries as her mother went in pursuit 
of the cake. 

She came back in a moment bearing it aloft on 
the palm of her outspread hand. Isabel’s back 
was toward her, but she heard the rustle of paraf- 
fine paper and she sniffed the air as Bunkie 
might have done, as Bunkie did do, in fact, for 
he lay at Isabel’s feet, under the table. 

“Smells like fudge!” Isabel said. 

“Wise little nose! It is fudge; fudge icing 
and middle coatings!” cried Mrs. Lindsay, set- 
ting the cake where Isabel could see it. 

She folded the paraffine paper over and 
around the cake and dropped it deftly into a box 
that might easily have been too small for it, and 
was so exactly the right size that it took skill 
to get the cake into it unharmed. 

“I’m ready!” cried Isabel, hastily taking a 
long drink of water and folding her napkin with 
her left hand as she did so. 

“May I walk with you, Miss Lindsay, as far as 
Miss Wayne’s door?” asked Mr. Lindsay, push- 
ing back his chair. 

As “Miss Wayne’s door” was the next door, 
the Wayne and Lindsay places adjoining, this 
did not seem too much to ask, and Isabel giggled 
as she tried to consent with dignity. 

Hatless and happy, the cake in its box, resting 

[ 102 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

on one arm, Isabel started out beside her father 
and pulled his head down to kiss him when they 
paused at the Wayne gate. 

“Come on, Prue; we’re going early to have a 
little while all to ourselves, if Kathie and Dolly 
should come,” Isabel called, standing in the hall 
and trusting to luck that Prue would hear her. 

“I’ll telephone Mark to be at Chateau Branche 
with Poppy when we get there, save time going 
after them,” said Prue, the practical, ringing up 
the Central as she spoke from the bend in the 
hall where the telephone table stood, and where 
she happened to be when Isabel came in. 

After this was done, the two little girls sallied 
forth, Bunkie running ahead and pretending to 
startle himself with important discoveries along 
the way. They proceeded to Chateau Branche 
by a short cut into the woods. 

Mark and Poppy were there waiting for them, 
thanks to Prue’s foresight, when they reached 
the great pine in which Mr. Hawthorne had built 
their house. 

“We’ll get right up,” said Prue, beginning to 
climb the footholds which led into Chateau 
Branche. 

Isabel handed up the cake to Prue and fol- 
lowed; Mark and Poppy seemed less to climb 

[ 103 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


than to run up, like nuthatches, so agile they both 
were at this sort of feat. 

“Ah!” Mark drew a long breath of delight. 
“It seems to smell more piney so early in the 
morning. Isn’t it great to be up in these dark 
branches?” 

“Hark!” whispered Isabel, holding up her 
hand. 

A song so sweet, so liquid, so heart-stirring, 
that it was like the voice of the woods, of the 
sky, the green leaves, of June itself, pierced the 
stillness from a point near at hand. 

“Oh, it’s the veery!” whispered Mark, his eyes 
dilating. He had been taught by his father, 
wise in woods lore, the note of nearly every bird, 
and could himself imitate many of them, calling 
around him the little feathered denizens of the 
trees. 

“It’s a thrush; the veery,” Mark repeated, and 
the four sat so still that they hardly seemed to 
breathe, listening to this exquisite song. 

At last the veery flew away. .The children saw 
the brown body come out from an oak that stood 
next to their pine, brighten as it crossed the sun- 
shine, and disappear. 

“Why do you sort of want to cry when things 
are nice that way?” asked Poppy. 

“I think because they don’t last,” said Isabel, 
[ 104 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

the poet, who always saw deeper than the others. 

“You see one reason we don't care about hav- 
ing Kathie,” said Prue unexpectedly, for the rest 
had forgotten all about Kathie for the moment, 
“is because she always wants to be doing some- 
thing. When we come here we — we — well, we're 
just here don’t you see? We don’t want to do 
one thing but — be here.” 

“I do, now,” said Poppy. She laughed apolo- 
getically, but she said her say. “It’s awful early 
after breakfast, but I want to try Isa’s cake right 
off.” 

“ ’Course!” cried Isabel, getting it out. “It 
doesn’t matter when we eat it ; it’s when it tastes 
good. There!” 

She produced the cake, its icing slightly 
rubbed, and thrust the knife into its creamy mid- 
dle. “Cut it, Prue.” 

“Cut it yourself.” Prue promptly declined 
the honor. “It’s yours, and besides, I won’t; 
I’d jig it.” 

“Sakes, don’t jig it! What is jigging it?” 
Mark laughed at Prue. 

“Hacking,” explained Prue, watching Isabel, 
who was slowly penetrating the center of the 
three layers, her head on one side, her tongue 
out of the comer of her mouth, her wrist held 

[ 105 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


stiff, her face expressive of the deepest concen- 
tration and anxiety. 

“There, sir!” Isabel exclaimed at last. “If I 
get one piece cut I won’t mind the rest. Catch 
it, somebody. You, Pops!” 

Poppy needed no urging. She held out both 
her hands, palms up, side by side, to receive the 
thick pointed piece which Isabel deposited in 
them. 

“Um-m-m! Land, what cake!” Poppy tried 
to say, rolling up her eyes at her first mouthful, 
but because her mouth was indeed full, what she 
really said, all in one word, was: “Lawbake!” 

In a few minutes there was complete silence in 
Chateau Branche because all four of its tenants 
were merrily — and also messily — devouring 
great wedges of a cake so creamily fresh and soft, 
so thickly spread with fudge-filling, that talking 
was out of the question. 

Consequently any one coming aiong through 
the woods, past the tree, would not have sus- 
pected it of being different from other trees, 
inasmuch as it was occupied by children instead 
of birds. And some one was coming along! 
Mark was the first to spy him. He leaned for- 
ward and touched Prue and Isabel and Poppy, 
signaling them to keep quiet. Poppy nearly 
[ 106 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

cried out, but Prue, with great presence of mind, 
clapped a fudgey hand over her mouth. 

The four children peered down through the 
branch, which Mark pulled forward, the better 
to conceal them. 

They saw a small man with a queer, thin, wa- 
vering sort of face. He had dark eyes, that 
roved perpetually from side to side, but never 
were raised, for which the tree dwellers were duly 
grateful. His nose was so long and sharp that, 
set in the middle of his thin, narrow face, it lent 
itself to the children’s first thought of him as 
being some sort of wild creature. His short body 
was painfully thin; his shoulders were high; it 
took a few minutes for the children to discover 
that he was slightly deformed, one shoulder 
higher than the other, his back a little curved. 

The queer little man seemed to have no plan 
as to the movements which he was restlessly mak- 
ing. He walked short distances in every direc- 
tion, returning to the pine tree. Each time he 
started off the children hoped that he was going 
on, away from there, but he returned to the pine 
tree as if it were a magnet that drew him. 

To their great terror, the children soon dis- 
covered that he was talking to himself. It struck 
them as past bearing that this queer little man 
should talk to himself alone, as he believed him- 

[ 107 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


self, in the middle of the woods. Stray words 
came up to them; he spoke too low for them to 
hear many. 

“The brook,” he said. “Over there. Nice 
brook. Nice place. Should think they would 
live here, want to.” 

Did he mean themselves? the children won- 
dered. No one lived beside the lonely little brook 
that ran, talking to itself, much as this queer man 
did, near Chateau Branche all day and every 
day. 

Isabel and Poppy were frightened almost out 
of their wits. Prue was frightened, too, as was 
Mark, but Mark was on fire with curiosity, and 
Prue’s imagination did not build all sorts of aw- 
ful fancies upon the deformed creature as Isa- 
bel’s did. Poppy was so excitable that anything 
so out of the ordinary as this adventure would be 
sure to wind her up to the highest pitch. 

“Better rest,” they heard the queer man say, 
and with that he lay down on the carpet of brown 
needles which for years the great tree had spread 
at its own feet. 

“How shall we get away?” Isabel signaled to 
Mark. 

Mark shook his head; he had no idea. 

Presently, after a time of utter stillness and 
waiting, during which eight young legs and arms 
[ 108 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

developed prickles of nervousness and grew 
numb from keeping so long in one position — no 
one dared to move — the children in the tree saw 
Kathie and Dolly coming through the woods, on 
their way to join them. 

“Mercy me, he may kill them!” groaned Isa- 
bel, white to her lips and almost forgetting cau- 
tion for themselves. 

The queer little man sat up, listened; got 
quickly on his feet, listened. 

With unspeakable relief the children saw that 
he was himself afraid of being seen. Of being 
caught? They could not tell what he feared, but 
he was evidently on the alert to get away unseen. 

Their own fear vanished under this welcome 
discovery. 

Mark grew positively rash. He had a beauti- 
ful, flexible singing voice, which, though it; was 
still a high soprano, was capable of doing many 
queer feats. Dropping it low, Mark chanted in 
a way that even his companions found rather aw- 
ful: “Get out, get out, get out of here!” 

The queer man gave one wild glance all 
around him, and then he acted on the command. 
He got out of there, running like a deer, dodg- 
ing around trees, looking over his shoulder, but 
not slackening speed, till, in a moment, he was 
gone. 


[ 109 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Kathie and Dolly had not seen him; he had 
chanced to take the opposite direction from the 
one in which they were coming. 

Isabel, Prue, Poppy and Mark lost no time 
in coming down from Chateau Branche. 

“How could you, Mark; how dared you?” Isa- 
bel panted as she came down backward, very 
fast, talking as she came. “Suppose he hadn’t 
run? Suppose he had killed us!” 

“I thought I’d try it before he saw Kathie and 
Dolly. You couldn’t tell what he might have 
done to them,” said Mark, by this time in high 
glee. 

“What? Who?” demanded Kathie as she and 
Dolly came up in time to hear this answer. 

All talking at once, the four children told the 
story of the queer little man. The story lost 
nothing of mystery and terror in the telling. 

“Well, no more Chateau Branche for me, 
thank you!” said Kathie decidedly, as the tale 
ended. 

“Not much!” Dolly supplemented her. 

“We’ll be members in the club room, come 
there, I mean, but not up in that tree; not ever!” 
Kathie continued. 

“But are the woods spoiled?” asked Prue 
piteously 

“That’s according as you look at it,” said Mark 

[ 110 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

sagely, trying to catch Prue’s eye to convey to 
her that if Kathie and Dolly so looked at it the 
Lucky Four might be the gainers. 

“I think it was perfectly dreadful to sit there, 
penned up there, and see that man lying at the 
foot of the tree, so we couldn’t get down, just as 
if he was a dog and we were ’possums!” said 
Prue. “Why, where is Bunkie? He didn’t 
bark!” 

For the first time since she had owned him 
Bunkie had left Isabel and gone home. 

“It’s a pretty queer time, every way,” said 
Isabel gravely. “Here, have some cake, Kathie 
and Dolly. Mother gave it to us, and I need 
some more after this fearful experience.” 


Em] 









CHAPTER VIII 


ROUND RED RADISHES 

T HERE was an old Woman, as IVe heard 
tell, 

Went to market her eggs for to sell!’ ” sang 
Isabel close to Poppy’s ear, who was far too inter- 
ested in what she was planning to hear her. 

“Five cents a bunch ’s awful little,” Poppy was 
saying, frowning over her calculations. “But if 

you have a whole lot o’ bunches ” 

“They ought to be ten cents a bunch. Every- 
thing is twice as much as it was, and think what 
it would cost to go around peddling them if you 
had a car, when gasoline is so high! You’ve got 
to think of gasoline when you go out with the 
buckboard and Hurrah,” said Mark so gravely 
that it did not seem as if he were talking non- 
sense. 

Isabel laughed, but Prue said: 

“Would she have to? Anyway, Hurrah has 
to eat, so you could think of oats just as well, 
if you’d rather. I say ten cents a bunch, too, 
Poppy.” 


[ 113 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“Now, for pity’s sake, Pops, don't open an- 
other pea pod!” remonstrated Isa, as Poppy 
pinched one of her pods to see how full it felt. 
“You won’t have any peas at all if you keep on 
trying them! When they’re ripe you can tell 
without opening the pods. It won’t be long; 
they’re getting big.” 

“My lettuce is nice,” remarked Prue with sat- 
isfaction. “It isn’t headed up, but it’s as sweet 
and tender! Let’s start soon.” 

“We’re to have an early lunch. I’m going to 
feed Hurrah now, ’cause you hadn’t ought to 
drive a horse on his dinner,” said Poppy, turning 
from the contemplation of her garden and pick- 
ing up the can of glowing balls of radishes which 
she intended to offer for sale that afternoon. 

“No; it’s better to drive a horse on the road 
than on his dinner. And it’s better to say ‘you 
ought not’ than ‘you hadn’t ought,’ ” hinted 
Mark. 

“Well, I gotta get something wrong once’n a 
while,” Poppy said cheerfully. “You caught 
talking right from your families; I gotta learn 
it. Do you s’pose I’ll sell ’em?” 

“Gladys Popham Meiggs, that’s the nine hun- 
dred and ninety-ninth time — pretty near — 
you’ve asked that ! And how can we tell ?” cried 
[ 114 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

Prue. “Do you think my lettuce will sell? 
That’s just as much to find out.” 

“Where is your lettuce, Prue?” asked Mark. 

“I picked it early, came up before Isa did and 
picked it. It’s on the ice. Motherkins lent me 
a flat tin pan — it would be great to cool taffy in ! 
- — and we set it right on the ice, on top. I was 
going to put it in a basket all trimmed with dan- 
delions when we started — yellow and green are 
so pretty! — but the dandelions would all shut 
up on the way, so what’s the use?” Prue sighed 
over the ways of dandelions. 

Isabel pulled Mark’s sleeve, and he fell behind 
the other two with her as they went toward the 
house. 

“Any more news? About the will? Did your 
father hear?” Isa asked. 

Mark nodded without speaking. 

“Oh, dear! It’s true!” groaned Isabel. 

“Look’s bad, dad’s lawyers say,” Mark said 
soberly. “This Maurice Ditson is going to put 
it over. He’s got people to swear to another 
will that left all Mr. Ditson had to his son, so 
that lets us out. I’m afraid, Isa, dad and I will 
have to take Motherkins on our shoulders — and 
I’ll have to carry Pincushion, too! — and go out 
©f this house. It makes us pretty sick!” 

“Anybody as nice as Motherkins, who did so 

[ 115 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


much for everybody, gave Poppy a home and 
Bunkie, too, even when she was quite poor and 
didn’t know how she could do it, ought not to 
lose this house,” said Isabel emphatically. “Of 
course, you wouldn’t care for yourself; you’d be 
happy in any house till you were old enough to 
earn a really nice one.” 

“Suppose we had to leave Greenacres?” sug- 
gested Mark. 

Isabel stopped short and stared at him, grow- 
ing a little pale. 

“ Jack-in-the-Box ! Why? Why should you 
leave Greenacres?” she cried. 

“Dad would have to earn money ; we wouldn’t 
have enough, and suppose he couldn’t find a way 
to do it in Greenacres? We’d have to go, 
wouldn’t we?” Mark spoke gently, as if to 
soften to Isabel the edge of his words; her eyes 
were dilating with tears which brimmed on their 
lids, but did not fall, and her lips were parting 
with her quickened breath. 

“I never once, not once, thought of that! I 
never once thought you could go away, J ack-in- 
the-Box!” she whispered, sharply realizing what 
it would be to lose this dear boy, his quick fancy, 
his merry ways, like a creature of the woods, 
half wild, wholly gentle; his charm, his unfail- 
[ 116 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

ing understanding of the thoughts, the imagin- 
ings which Prue never could enter into. 

“Well, there’s no saying how I hope we won*t 
have to go,” sighed Mark. 

“Oh, you can’t go, Jack-in-the-Box!” cried 
Isabel. She used the first name by which she 
had called him, unconsciously connecting her 
meeting him with the awful threat of losing him. 

“I can’t stay if I can’t, Isa. What do people 
do when they must do a thing? They do it and 
try to stand it, don’t they?” asked Mark sadly. 

Isabel looked at him long and steadily, trying 
to adjust her mind to this new idea. Then she 
straightened herself, throwing back her slender 
shoulders, and tossed her dark, breeze-rumpled 
hair out of her tear-dimmed, blue-gray eyes. 

“It won’t happen! It can’t happen! Any- 
thing so dreadful can't happen. I won’t think 
of it for another single minute!” she declared. 
“Hurry and catch up with the others, and talk 
about what we’ll do this afternoon, when we go 
to take our garden things to market. If only 
my flowers were ready! They’re budded. I 
dread to go, do you know that! It seems funny 
to be hucksters right in Greenacres. Poppy al- 
ways — well, you know ! The Meiggs family was 
poor, but my father is president of the bank and 
Mr. Wayne is a lawyer, and your father is Mr. 

[ 117 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Hawthorne, and people know the Hawthornes. 
You don’t think they’ll call it something like go- 
ing around begging, do you?” 

“Selling isn’t one bit like begging; you know, 
it’s going into business, Isa. But don’t, if you 
don’t want to ! Let Poppy have all we raise and 
sell it, and keep the money,” suggested Mark. 

“Oh, she never would,” declared Isabel. “Be- 
sides, it’s rather hacking out. I’ll go, but I do 
feel rather queer about it.” 

At the last minute, as it happened, Isabel did 
not go. Her mother telephoned for her to come 
home because a friend of her mother’s, who had 
not seen Isa since she was a baby, had unexpect- 
edly arrived on a tour which she was making in 
her car, and Isabel had to be summoned home to 
see her for the brief hour which was all that she 
could spare to visit Mrs. Lindsay. 

So all that Isabel shared of this expedition to 
market with Prue’s lettuce and Poppy’s rad- 
ishes was storing the baskets, two of them, under 
the seat of the buckboard and seeing her friends 
start. After this she ran home. 

Hurrah was in no mood for hurrying; the day 
was growing warm, the air heavy, showers threat- 
ened to come up at night. Poppy sat straight 
and stiff, driving, with Prue beside her. Mark 
sat on the end of the buckboard, dangling his 
[ 118 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

long legs, amusing himself by turning the toes 
of his shoes toward each other, and admiring 
his ribbed brown stockings, or else experimenting 
in keeping his legs out stiff and straight while he 
raised himself on his hands and tried to hold him- 
self thus as long as he could while they jolted 
along. 

They had decided to go first of all to Mrs. 
Wilkins’. She was a merry, kindly old lady, 
nearing seventy, so friendly to children that half 
of the youngsters in Greenacres called her 
“Grandma Wilkins,” though she had no grand- 
child to give her the title. 

“Whoa!” shouted Poppy, louder than was 
necessary, since Hurrah was not in the least deaf. 
She hoped that Mrs. Wilkins would hear and 
come out. 

This happened, and when she appeared on her 
piazza Poppy called : 

“Radishes! Round, red radishes! Raised by 
a Red-head! Round red radishes!” in a voice 
worthy of her new occupation. 

“For goodness’ sake, Poppy! And you, Pru- 
dence Wayne! And Mark Hawthorne! Are 
you turning into hucksters? Well, I want to 
know!” cried Mrs. Wilkins. 

“We’ve got gardens, and this is the first out 
o’ them, Mis’ Wilkins,” said Poppy. “The other 

[ 119 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


things ain’t ready, but just lettuce and round red 
radishes — they’re mine, and the lettuce is Prue’s. 
We’ve gone into business. This is our first trip; 
you’re our first stop.” 

“Because you knew I’d want a lot of radishes! 
Though I don’t eat ’em myself, other people do, 
and I like to send my neighbors some tidbits 
occasionally. But lettuce I’m partial to; it’s a 
great help to a good tea, with nice bread and but- 
ter. Give me all you can spare of your stuff,” 
said the dear old plump person cordially. 

“Now, Mrs. Wilkins, you mustn’t say that 
just to help us,” interposed Prue, scowling anx- 
iously. “We want to sell, but we don’t want to 
have people do what isn’t fair, take what they 
don’t want.” 

“Trust you, Prudence Wayne, to want to deal 
square,” laughed Mrs. Wilkins. “But it isn’t 
good business to talk folks out of buying, my 
dear! Don’t you worry; I’ve got a use for any- 
thing I buy.” 

She produced a worn pocketbook, with a nickel 
clasp, and a bill fold, and pocket for change. 
Mark said afterward “it looked as if it belonged 
to her.” 

Prue put into the bright new pan, which Mrs. 
Wilkins fetched, a large quantity of the tender 
young lettuce and three bunches of Poppy’s 
[ 120 ] 



POPPY CAJ.LED, "RADISHES ! ROUND RED RADISHES ! GROWN BY A RED- 
HEAD.” 




THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“round red radishes.” The combination was 
pretty against the shining tin. 

“Well, we’ve begun!” Prue remarked, taking 
a long breath as they went on their way with cor- 
dial good-bys and good wishes from Mrs. Wil- 
kins, the money of their first sale in Mark’s 
pocket, he being elected treasurer, and four per- 
fectly fresh, creamy cookies apiece, deliciously 
sprinkled with cocoanut, held on the cookie by a 
coating of melted sugar. No one, it had long 
ago been decided by Greenacres children, ever 
made such cookies as Grandma Wilkins did. 

“We can’t have such luck everywhere,” said 
Poppy, speaking with difficulty as she removed 
cocoanut from her cheek at the extreme reach of 
her tongue’s length because Hurrah had whisked 
his tail over the lines and spoiled her aim when 
she took a bite of cookie. “There ain’t many 
people so awful nice as she is. But we’ll keep 
right at it.” 

They “kept right at it,” and, selling a little 
lettuce here, a bunch of radishes there, soon got 
rid of all the stock except a few ragged lettuce 
leaves. 

Most people regarded the new vendors as a 
great joke, but one severe person held them up 
to lecture them on taking trade from the poor — 

[ 121 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


and did not buy when Prue and Poppy refused 
to cheapen their wares. 

“Gee, she might of took the stuff when we had 
to let her preach at us!” said Poppy, too dis- 
gusted to remember the lessons in English which 
the other children gave her, and which she was 
so anxious to learn. 

Hurrah was turned homeward — he went that 
way more willingly than he started out — and the 
children were wondering how much they had 
made. 

“Don’t take it out to count it, Mark!” cried 
Prue. “It joggles so, you might drop some. 
Help me count up in my head. I can remember 
just what we sold.” 

Prue began to recall aloud where they had 
stopped, what sales they had made, and Mark 
added for her as she went along. He was a 
marvel at mental addition ; indeed, his quick brain 
excelled in all feats demanded of it. 

Poppy took no part in this calculation except 
to correct Prue sometimes when she made a mis- 
take in her recollection of sales. 

There was a wagon ahead of them, a long one 
with a top, and it emitted a pleasant sound of a 
bell hung somewhere upon it. 

Poppy’s sharp eyes had been upon it for some 
time. At last she said: 

[ 122 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“I like Hurrah terrible well, but I do wish I 
could hurry him up to catch that wagon! He 
won’t hurry for a cent.” 

“I’ll hurry him; he’ll go for me, Pops,” said 
Mark. “He knows your soft heart by this time. 
I always can make animals do things, you know.” 

As Poppy, to his surprise, instantly accepted 
Mark’s off er, he added : 

“Why do you want to overhaul that wagon, 
Poppy?” 

“It looks like a friend of mine,” said Poppy, 
mixing the wagon with its driver in her reply. 
“If I know what, that’s Mr. Thomas Burke, 906 
North Street, Hertonsburg, what took me along 
home that time I went off, and I’d just love to 
see him, and I know he’d be crazy to see me.” 

“Is it, honest?” cried Mark. “Well, we’ll 
overhaul him, all right. See Hurrah!” 

Sure enough, true to Mark’s prophecy, Hur- 
rah was trotting along to oblige Mark as he never 
did for Poppy. Soon the buckboard came up 
close to the wagon, and Poppy made sure that 
the bulky form on its seat was, indeed, her res- 
cuer, the bottle dealer, and she shrieked wildly: 

“Mr. Burke, Mr. Burke! Turn around and 
see me!” 

Mr. Burke turned, not his head, but his whole 
body, which was a large and thick one. 

[123] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

“Well, if it ain’t little Redtop!” shouted Mr. 
Burke, and, stopping his horse, got down to greet 
Poppy, his broad face red with pleasure. 

Poppy took him around the neck with gusto. 
She hugged him hard. 

“You’re just as welcome as a flower in the 
spring!” she poetically said. 

“Which I ain’t so strikin’ like!” said Mr. 
Burke with a grin. “Lucky I haven’t got a gas 
truck, or you couldn’t have caught me. Say, how 
are you, anyway, little Redtop? Just as calm 
an’ sort of slow an’ lazy as you was? Don’t 
move around quick, nor fly off these days, do 
you? Are these your friends you told me about? 
Miss Isabel Lindsay, that you wrote the post 
card to?” 

“This is Miss Prue Wayne; Isabel didn’t 
come,” explained Poppy, and as Mr. Burke 
touched his hat to Prue she added: “This is my 
own horse and buckboard, Mr. Burke.” 

“Never!” exclaimed Mr. Burke. 

“Ever!” Poppy corrected him. “It was a 
present to me from another friend of mine, Mr. 
Babcock, the postmaster; he’s very nice, not quite 
straight — I mean his back ain’t.” 

“Well, you do be the great one for friends, lit- 
tle Poppy Redtop,” said Mr. Burke admiringly. 
“It’s congratulations that’s due you, an’ that’s 
[ 124 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

the truth. Now I’ve met you, I might tell you 
my errand. I was aimin’ to see your — well, I 
don’t know the title you give ’em, but whoever 
takes care of you — Mr. Gilbert Hawthorne, ’tis. 
I’ll not be goin’ to the house, now I can tell you 
what I had to say.” 

“Oh, yes, Mr. Burke,” Mark cried. “Please 
come. Dad will be glad enough to see you. He 
would be annoyed with us, with me, if you didn’t 
come. Please come. We all know you well 
through Poppy. Motherkins — my grandmother, 
Mrs. Hawthorne — would love to thank you for 
taking care of Poppy last summer.” 

“You’re a little gentleman!” declared Mr. 
Burke, regarding with frank admiration Mark’s 
radiant face. “It’s no thanks are due me for pick- 
in’ up a bit of a girl, out gettin’ herself into 
trouble. But I’ll go along with pleasure. I’ve 
something to tell your father that maybe he 
ought to know, an’ maybe it’s no matter. Will 
I lead an’ will you follow, or will we turn it the 
other way, an’ me follow that war horse of Pop- 
py’s? How do you name him?” 

“Hurrah,” said Poppy. “He’s not a war 
horse; he’s peaceful and loving.” 

“ ’Deed, then, he looks it! An’ Hurrah is a 
name that couldn’t be beat for belongin’ to a 
horse that you own, little Redtop ; you’re the one 

{ 125 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


to go with a hurrah, as the sayin’ is!” Mr. 
Thomas Burke grinned at Poppy so warmly that 
she could not suspect him of looking down on 
Hurrah, as she at first thought he might do. 

Mr. Burke went back and climbed up on his 
wagon, with grunts that revealed the effort it 
cost him, and the two vehicles took their way up 
to the Hawthorne house, Mr. Burke in the lead, 
Hurrah and his friends in the rear. 

At the gateway they were met by Isabel, too 
excited to stand still or to wonder at Mr. Burke. 

“Oh, IVe been dying! I thought you’d never 
come back!” she cried, jumping from one to the 
other foot. “Mother’s friend went and I came 
back here to wait for you. I went up to the 
Club Room, and what do you s’pose?” 

Isabel barely paused at the end of her ques- 
tion, which she did not expect answered. The 
other children murmured something, but Isabel 
went on hurriedly. 

“Some one’s been up there, in our room! 
They’ve been eating, and moved things around. 
And they took out a pillow!” 

“Who?” demanded the other three together. 

“Well, who?” echoed Isabel. “I think it was 
Kathie and Dolly. Kathie can climb up as easy! 
You know she did the other day. They aren’t 
members yet; I don’t think they ought to go 
[ 126 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

there when we’re not there, and, of course, they 
can’t take anything out. Even one of us 
couldn’t ; we own those things together.” 

“Well, that’s rather queer,” said Mark slowly. 
“I wouldn’t think they’d do that. Maybe it was 
some one else — but who?” 

“Yes, who?” echoed Isabel again. “Well, any- 
way, I’ve been crazy to have you get back and 
come up to see.” 

“We’ll come,” said Mark. “I’ve got to find 
dad and introduce Mr. Burke to him. This is 
Mr. Burke, who found Poppy for us that time; 
this is Isabel Lindsay, Mr. Burke.” 

“Pleased to meet you, miss,” said Mr. Burke, 
again touching his cap. His eyes lighted with 
pleasure at the sight of lovely little Isa. “I had 
the honor to write you a post card, but I’d rather 
see you, an’ that’s no lie for me.” 


[ 127 ] 








CHAPTER IX 


QUEER HAPPENINGS 


OULD we hear what you are going to tell, 



VJ Mr. Burke?” asked Poppy. Her sharp lit- 
tle face almost looked as though it had been whit- 
tled, so much was its natural pointedness in- 
creased by her devouring curiosity. Poppy was 
always as curious as a cat. 

Mr. Burke looked down on her with kindly 
amusement. 

“Considerin’ it’s next to nothin’, unless Mr. 
Hawthorne has some missin’ bits to put to it, like 
them pitcher puzzles, you may hear what I’ve got 
to tell’s far’s I’m concerned — which is next to 
nothin’, as I’ve just said,” he replied. 

“But first be sure you will not have something 
more — one more cup of tea?” suggested Mother- 
kins hovering, anxious to do all that she could 
for this kind man who had once been good to 
Poppy. 

“ ’Deed, then, ma’am, there’s no more desire 
nor space left in me !” declared Mr. Burke. “But 

[ 129 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

I’d dearly love my pipeful of tobacco, if there’s 
a place on the grounds where I could smoke it 
an’ not be puttin’ you out.” 

“My mother lets me smoke on the piazza, in 
the house, too, when it is too chilly to sit out- 
side. Come, then, Mr. Burke, and open your 
budget of news!” said Mr. Hawthorne. 

“It’s not much,” began Mr. Burke, when they 
were seated and he had drawn deeply on his 
wooden pipe to get it going. All four children — 
Isabel and Prue had obtained permission by tele- 
phone to stay on at the Hawthorne house — sat 
close to Mr. Burke, not to miss a word. 

“Well, then,” Mr. Burke fairly launched him- 
self in his story this time, “it was this way: I 
was drivin’ along one day, I’d say ten days back, 
but it might be a matter of a few days more ; time 
does be greatly alike, seen from a cart seat. I 
came up wid a small man trampin’ along the side 
of the way, an’ when he looks up at me I passed 
the time o’ day with him, civil like. Pie answered 
kind of funny, not just grumpy like, but yet not 
ready; sort of hesitatin’. An’ the queerest face 
I ever set me two eyes on was on the front side 
of the head of that same little man! He ha& a 
nose you might use as a screw-driver, on a pinch, 
that long and thin ’twas ! He had a pair of dark 
eyes that shone like a glass bottle beside the road 
[ 180 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

when the sun strikes on it, an’ they was never 
still a minute. He was a little misshapen creature 
besides ” 

“The queer man in the woods !” cried Mark 
and Isabel at the same instant, as Poppy 
shouted: “We saw him! We saw him! Out by 
Chateau Branche and we were scared!” 

“Did you see him now!” exclaimed Mr. Burke. 
“Small blame to you for being scared, says I, for 
one! Then it’s you who knows how he looked 
without me tellin’ you. Did he find you, sir?” 

“No,” said Mr. Hawthorne. “This is the first 
I’ve heard of him; the children did not speak of 
seeing any one so peculiar in the woods.” 

“For fear you’d think we hadn’t ought — ought 
not to go there,” explained Poppy. 

“I certainly should want his record investi- 
gated,” said Mr. Hawthorne. “Why did you ask 
if he found me, Mr. Burke? Was he looking for 
me?” 

“When he’d eyed me for a minute, queer and 
uncertain like,” Thomas Burke resumed, “he 
asked did I know the countryside well? An’ I 
told him I ought to, drivin’ it constant for up- 
wards of seven years. An’ he asked did I know 
any one named Hawthorne, Gilbert Hawthorne, 
an’, says I, I do. Leastways, I know a little 
about him, nor did I say he was lookin’ after me 

[ 131 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

friend, Poppy, though I might have, I might 
have!” Mr. Burke smiled into Poppy’s face, 
thrust forward as she perched on the edge of a 
chair as if afraid that a word might slip past her. 

“Then he asked me, an’ I told him where you 
lived, sir, an’ he listened tight, an’ he sort of 
muttered that maybe he’d see you. ‘Maybe I 
will,’ he said, an’ he shook his head hard. I mis- 
doubted he was right in his mind, but I let him 
go on — he wouldn’t ride wid me, though I asked 
him. Ever since it’s been botherin’ me that 
maybe it was something you ought to know 
about, an’ more an’ more did it bother me the 
longer I thought about it, till the missus says: 
‘Gwan wid you, Tom, an’ see Mr. Hawthorne. 
Make it your way to go to Greenacres sooner 
than you’re due there, an’ see him an’ tell him 
the little there is to tell, an’ get it off your con- 
science.’ So I’m here, an’ you’re told, an’ for 
my part of it, there’s no more about it. You 
don’t know the man; there’s no mischief afoot, is 
there?” 

“Not that I know of ; no, I don’t know any one 
like the person you describe. Curious, too, espe- 
cially that he was in the woods near the children’s 
tree house — if it were the same man,” said Mr. 
Hawthorne slowly. 

“Oh, it was, daddy; it had to be!” cried Mark. 

[ 132 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“There couldn’t be two like that in one neighbor- 
hood. Say, isn’t it great? It sounds like a story 
with a plot to it.” 

“It sounds like a fairy stoiy. The queer man 
is a gnome, or wicked fairy, or maybe he is en- 
chanted and unhappy and is trying to do good to 
you, to get free of the spell upon him!” cried Isa- 
bel, who always wove stories out of all material 
that came to her hand. “I think it’s terribly in- 
teresting! And strange! Last year we found 
Jack-in-the-Box in the woods and thought he 
was a fairy at first, and now it is a gnome!” 

Prue had sat in rigid silence, listening, but not 
speaking. Her face betrayed her alarm. Now 
she jumped up and said: 

“I hope you don’t think they’re anything alike! 
Jack-in-the-Box was the nicest thing that ever 
happened to us, but this is horrid! Perfectly, 
norrid-awf ul ! And I’m going home before it 
gets any darker, and, Mark and Poppy, you 
must go half way with me, even now!” 

“Let me see you home, little misses,” said Mr. 
Thomas Burke, rising. He had received and ac- 
cepted an invitation to stay over night at the 
Hawthorne house, and his big horse, Cork, was 
to keep Hurrah company in the next stall to him. 

“Oh, we sha’n’t be afraid with Mark and 
Poppy,” said Prue hastily. 


[ 133 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Prue was a proper little person, with consid- 
erable respect for social distinctions; she did not 
care to be taken home by a bottle dealer. 

Isabel, cleverer and finer than Prue, made 
friends with all sorts of people, knew how to get 
pleasure out of talking to them, yet never for an 
instant was less than an exceedingly fine little 
fine lady. 

“Well, if you wouldn’t mind, if you aren’t 
tired, Mr. Burke, it would be much nicer to have 
you come with us,” Isabel said, adding in an 
undertone that only Prue could hear: 

“Don’t be a goose, Prue Wayne!” 

So Mr. Thomas Burke, dealer in second-hand 
bottles, escorted Isabel Lindsay and Prue 
Wayne to their homes, Poppy trotting beside 
him, holding his hand, admiringly looking up at 
him as he talked nonsense and made the children 
laugh. 

“He’s splendid!” said Isabel, when Mr. Burke 
had bade her and Prue good night and had gone 
off with Poppy and Mark. “He is as kind as 
kind, and doesn’t he tell wonderful stories! I 
would like to ride in his cart all over the country, 
hearing him talk and seeing life. To-morrow, 
Prue, we must pitch into Dolly and Kathie for 
taking things out of the Club Boom, though, of 
[ 184 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

eourse, it was only Kath climbed up. Fancy lazy 
Dolly climbing up there !” 

“We’ve got to ask them first if they did it,” 
said Prue justly. “Kathie will not say she didn’t 
if she did. It seems to me rather queer for her 
to do that; I can’t seem to believe she did.” 

“Who else?” demanded Isabel. “I think it’s 
queer, too, but who else would it be likely to be?” 

“It isn’t likely to be Kathie, either,” persisted 
Prue. “Anyway, find out before you say any- 
thing.” 

“I’ve got to say, ‘did you?’ haven’t I, or how 
shall I find out? Good-night, Grandma Wayne! 
Didn’t they know just how you were going to 
turn out when they named you Prudence!” 

Isabel kissed Prue hard; she loved her when 
she was so sensible and cautious, partly because, 
though she, too, was sensible, Isabel was likely 
to be rash. 

Then Isabel ran into the house for her hour 
which she always spent in intimate talk with her 
mother at twilight, and for which to-night she 
was late. 

The next morning Isabel was awake early, 
having a great deal on her mind. The story of 
the queer man lost nothing of its interest in tell- 
ing it to her mother; she had gone to bed excited 
over its mystery. 


[ 135 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Then there was the fact that the Club Room 
had been entered from outside. Isabel was im- 
patient to see Katliie and Dolly and find out 
what they knew about it. She was tempted to 
feel a little hard-used that she could not omit her 
lessons that morning. School had been closed 
in the middle of April because of an epidemic of 
measles that hung along, a new case coming on 
when it all seemed to be over, so late that there 
would be no more school that season. Isabel and 
Prue were compelled to keep on with their stud- 
ies at home; this morning Isabel found the rule 
hard. It was eleven before she was ready to go 
to call Prue, and set out to find Kathie and 
Dolly. 

They met Poppy running with all her might to 
meet them. 

“I thought you’d be coming,” she panted. “I 
knew you’d go for those girls soon’s you could 
get done. Mark’s taken Hurrah to the black- 
smith; his feet’s long, Mr. Burke said. Ain’t he 
a peach? I just love him! He’s coming again 
and bring his missus. He calls her ‘the missus.’ 
I like that name. They’re both’s peachy as they 
can be. I might go help c’lect bottles, if Mr. 
Hawthorne’s prop’ty gets swiped by that nasty 
Ditson man. Say, what I run to tell you was 
that one of the dishes out o’ the Club Room’s 
[ 136 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

under a tree. So it was took out, and who done 
it?” 

“Oh, Poppy, there were more bad mistakes in 
what youVe just said than you’ve made for I- 
don’t-know-how-long!” sighed Prue, not to be 
torn from her duty of correcting Poppy by any 
interest, however strong. And this was an ab- 
sorbing interest, the entering of the Club Room. 

“Oh, well, I’m going to be a lady if I bust, 
but you can’t keep right at it, no matter what 
you’re thinking about!” cried Poppy. “Who 
done— did it?” 

“We’re going right off this minute to ask 
Kathie and Dolly what they know,” said Isabel, 
swinging around to carry out her words. And 
Poppy joined her and Prue as a matter of course. 

They found Dolly and Kathie eating straw- 
berry sundaes in the drug store. 

“We can’t treat because we had just enough 
money to pay for two, but we’ll wait for you, 
if you’re after some,” said Kathie nobly. 

“We’re not,” said Isabel, though Poppy 
looked exceedingly sorry that this was true. 
“Walk with us if you’re through, we want to 
ask you something. Now: Who climbed up into 
the Club Room by the piazza roof?” 

“Me; you saw me,” said Kathie promptly, 
taking instant offence from a tone in Isabel’s 

[ 137 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


voice of which she was herself unconscious, but 
which sprang from her certainty that Kathie had 
climbed in again, alone. 

“Yes, but since; just the night before last, or 
that day,” Isabel went on her voice still more ac- 
cusing. “Do you know anything about it?” 

“Why don’t you ask straight out if I did it?” 
demanded Kathie. 

“I will: Did you?” said Isabel. 

“I wouldn’t tell if I did, and I won’t say I 
didn’t,” said Kathie angrily. “I’d just like to 
know, Isabel Lindsay, why you come at me like 
this?” 

“She — I mean we — aren’t coming at you, 
Kathie,” interposed Prue. “Isabel is speaking 
sort of hard because she’s so bothered — I mean 
we are. Some one went in there, and they took 
out a few little things, and we’ve got to know 
if anybody’s breaking in. Greenacres is a little 
queer lately; there’s a man in it.” 

Kathie burst into mocking laughter, not in the 
least soothed by Prue’s evident desire to keep 
the peace. “I always knew there was a man 
in Greenacres! You silly, Prue Wayne!” 

“Silly nothin’!” broke in Poppy in a blaze of 
wrath. “Think you’re smart! Anybody that 
wasn’t a gump would know she meant a queer 
man ” 


[ 138 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“You tend to your own affairs, you meddle- 
some monkey!” Dolly now took a hand in the 
fast thickening atmosphere of thunder and light- 
ning. 

“Poppy, please don’t!” begged Prue dis- 
tressed. “I don’t care what Kathie said.” 

“No! I’m not worth caring about! That’s 
what you mean, so just say so,” stormed Kathie. 

“I did not! I meant I didn’t feel mad,” cried 
Prue beginning to cry, dismayed to find the 
battle around her head when she had but meant 
to head off a battle. 

“Well, but that isn’t the thing,” Isabel began 
over again. “There’s no sense scrapping, say- 
ing things back and forth. What I want to know 
is was it you who went up there alone and took 
out a pillow and a dish or two? If it wasn’t you, 
it’s awful. If it is you, you hadn’t any right to 
do it, for you’re not even a real member, and 
we real members can’t take things away. So I 
want to know.” 

“Oh, you want to know, do you!” echoed 
Kathie in a towering temper by this time. “Well, 
then, find out! You won’t get me to tell you. I 
might have told, if you hadn’t talked as if I was 
a thief or something! Now you can find out any 
way you can work it, but not from me. Why 

[ 139 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


don’t you get up a detector from New York and 
lock me up, if I’m the one?” 

“Detective,” murmured Prue in spite of her- 
self, which did not make things better. 

“Oh, Kathie, how can you!” cried Isabel, fol- 
lowing Prue’s tears with sobs that brought no 
tears, but which shook her delicate litle body 
from head to foot. 

“Oh, I hate a fuss, I can’t stand a fuss! I 
did not speak as you say. I didn’t mean to speak 
unkindly. I just want to know, Kathie! Oh, 
Kathie, don’t you see it’s dreadful to have some 
one coming in there and not know who it is? 
Won’t you please, please, Kathie, tell if it’s you? 
Just if it’s you, you know!” 

“I won’t tell you one single thing, Isabel 
Lindsay,” said Kathie. “And Dolly shall not!” 
she added, seeing Prue about to turn to Dolly. 

Kathie put her hand on her chum’s shoulder 
with no gentle touch, and Dolly would not have 
spoken for the world. 

“Cause you’re the one, that’s why!” shouted 
Poppy at the top of her voice. 

“Oh, hush, Pops!” cried Isabel, suddenly calm 
again. “I’m afraid that is the reason, Kathie,” 
she added with great dignity. “I am afraid that 
Poppy is right and that you did go up there, 
and that is why you won’t answer. I’m afraid 
[ 140 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

you can’t be a member, ever, and I think you’d 
better stop being on trial now.” 

“X suppose everything’s as you say! I sup- 
pose Mark hasn’t one thing to say, only just 
mind you! Well, we wouldn’t be in that club, 
not for the wealth of Indians! We resign. 
Dolly and me resign — don’t you, Doll?” Kathie 
demanded shaking her friend without knowing 
that she did so. 

“Sure!” said frightened Dolly, who never 
quarreled nor exerted herself when she could 
help it. 

“Isa said it first! Isa said it first! You can’t 
— what-do-you-call-it! Isa put you out first!” 
chanted Poppy dancing around the girls so ex- 
cited that she had no consciousness of being in the 
street, nor of the amazed amusement of some 
grown-up on-lookers. 

“Because she knew we wouldn’t stay in!” cried 
Kathie, quite beside herself at this triumphant 
war dance of Poppy’s. 

“Well, it’s horrid! It’s awful! Why, why do 
we have such a row? Just asking — just asking 

— just asking ” Isabel broke down in another 

storm of tearless sobbing. 

“Come on home, Isa, my darling! I’ll wipe 
my shoes of their dust!” said Prue, herself now 

[ 141 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


in a white heat of anger since her beloved Isa was 
so shattered. 

“Dust! Yes, I guess! Shoes! Wipe!” 
Kathie’s scorn was scathing, though its expres- 
sion was not striking. 

The two parties turned without another word 
and walked in opposite directions, every muscle 
in each of the five bodies tautly declaring the in- 
dignation that burned within them. 

Isabel walked on sobbing uncontrollably, but 
not crying. Prue was no longer in tears; her 
anger had dried them when she saw Isabel so 
hurt. Poppy was in such a rage that it might 
have been funny if either of the others had been 
capable of seeing it. She spun around and 
around, making progress, but always as a top 
progresses, and she ceaselessly uttered funny 
sounds, almost as if she were a furious little beast. 

“Oh, it’s awful, it’s awful! It’s just like hav- 
ing a sort of fight!” mourned Isabel. 

“’Course!” cried Prue, and to her own sur- 
prise she laughed. 

“Be nicer to fight,” said Poppy. 

“Well, I think the worst is not knowing who 
got into that room,” said Prue. “If Kathie 
wants to act like this, let her. You did speak sort 
of stern, Isa darling, but anybody’d know you 
were stirred up ; you’re so gentle and not-hurting 
[ 142 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

always, not even flies ! I don’t care about Kathie, 
because — I don’t! But who was it?” 

“Oh, it was Kathie. I know it was now, and 
I knew it before — I mean I was as sure as any- 
thing. Well, it won’t happen again. She’s too 
mad with us to come either climbing in, or walk- 
ing in and up the stairs,” sighed Isabel. 

“If only we hadn’t let them half-come, be the 
least bit members!” Prue said, also sighing. 


[ 143 ] 








CHAPTER X 


“you’d hardly know greenacres” 

I SABEL had not found relief, as Prue had, in 
tears while the scene with Kathie and Holly 
was enacted. She kept from crying till she 
poured out the story of the quarrel to her mother 
that night at twilight, but then she poured out 
tears with the story and cried till, big girl as 
she was getting to be, her mother gathered her 
into her lap — all of her that it would hold! — and 
tried to check the flood. 

Isa was not a child that cried easily, but, like 
most people to whom tears are difficult, when she 
did cry she cried so hard that it often made her a 
little ill. Mrs. Lindsay dreaded one of her 
breakdowns. 

“There, there, my dear; there, my little Isa- 
bel!” she murmured patting Isa’s heaving shoul- 
der. “It really is not so bad as you think it 
is. It will be straightened out. Kathie resented 
being questioned, but it will look different to her 
to-morrow morning. You still think she is the 

[ 145 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


one who climbed up into your room ? Her being 
so angry over the suspicion might mean that she 
had not been there, or it might mean that she was 
angry at being found out.” 

“I’d believe her if she said she hadn’t gone, 
but she wouldn’t say it, so I think it was — her? 
She ?” Isabel tried at once to speak correctly and 
to speak at all, keeping down her sobs. 

“She. After was, or is, you know,” Mrs. Lind- 
say helped her in both ways, supplying the pro- 
noun and smoothing Isa’s hair. “It wasn’t a 
crime to climb up and go in, after all. If Kathie 
did it, I think she must be forgiven.” 

“But taking out our things, mother?” cried 
Isabel, sitting erect with symptoms that the storm 
was past. 

“Oh, I forgot about that! No, that was not 
right. It doesn’t seem to me like Kathie Stevens, 
either! Curious little affair, isn’t it? I hear 
what story books might call ‘a well-known foot- 
step !’ I think a person called Harvey Lindsay is 
coming in!” Isabel’s mother arose as Isabel got 
off her knees, and went to meet her husband, 
Isabel languidly following. 

“Why, what’s wrong, Lady Bird?” cried Mr. 
Lindsay at once. 

“Isa is greatly troubled by a falling out be- 
tween her and Kathie Stevens, in fact between 
[ 146 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

our four intimate children, and Kathie and Dolly. 
Isa may have made a little mistake in the way 
she approached a question that had to be asked 
Kathie, but she has not provoked the quarrel, 
and I’m sure it will be healed soon.” Mrs. Lind- 
say explained to her husband, but smiled hope- 
fully at her tear-stained and swollen daughter. 

“Come now, that’s everything, not to be the 
cause of a rumpus, and to be in the right!” Mr. 
Lindsay’s big voice sounded heartening. “I 
don’t mind greatly what the other fellow does, not 
after a time, though I may at first. I do mind 
like the mischief to see, when I cool off, that I was 
in the wrong! Your trouble is not going to last, 
my dawtie ! And when I was about your age and 
had cried my fill, I found nothing as refreshing 
to my throat and to my spirits as ice cream! So 
I’ll slip back to Ebers’ and bring up a quart in 
a nice little tape-handled box. What flavor, 
Lady Isabel-ladybird?” 

“Maple walnut and strawberry,” said Isabel 
without an instant’s hesitation. “Thank you, you 
dear Person,” she added with a smile rather like 
melted ice cream, sweet, but lacking vigor. 

When her father returned her mother helped 
herself and her husband to a little less than a 
third of the cream apiece and handed Isa the box, 
because she preferred it thus. Seated on the 

[ 147 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

upper step under the brilliant summer stars, 
taking heaped spoonfuls of the delicious cream 
for which Ebers was famous for miles, and lick- 
ing the top of each spoonful into a cone to get 
the full flavor, a mannerless way of eating that 
the night and out-of-doors allowed, Isabel began 
to feel comforted. The strawberry ice cream was 
dotted with seeds to prove that fruit, not flavor- 
ing gave it its flavor; the maple walnut was as 
strong of maple syrup taste as a Vermont sugar 
camp vat. 

Isabel licked her spoon blissfully, if inelegant- 
ly, since no one could see her, and felt that life 
still held a great deal to enjoy. As to her father, 
who had taken the walk to get the cream for her 
when he was surely tired, how could she express 
the flavor of his love for his girl? 

“Father, you blessing, my throat does feel 
scrumptious after that cream, and I hope some 
day, I’ll have a big, hard thing to do for you and 
mother, just to show you!” Isabel said at last, 
getting up from the step with a contentedly- 
weary yawn, and going over to kiss her best-be- 
loveds good night. 

The first thing in the morning, while Isa was 
still at breakfast, there appeared Mark in a state 
of great excitement. 

“Well, what do you suppose!” he burst forth 
[ 148 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

at once* “Oh, good morning, Mrs. Lindsay! I 
forgot. But what do you suppose, honest?” 

“What are we to suppose about, Mark?” 
hinted Mrs. Lindsay. 

“I’d say about ’most anything,” returned 
Mark. “Things are happening in all directions. 
You couldn’t guess this; you didn’t know about 
it, I suppose. Say, Isa, you know Kathie 
Stevens’ coins?” 

“ ’Course,” said Isa, leaning forward breath- 
lessly. 

“Gone!” cried Mark. 

“Gone?” echoed Isabel. “Where? How do 
you mean gone?” 

“If I only knew where!” said Mark. “Don’t 
you know I put the box down in the secret pass- 
age? They stayed there all right; I’ve looked 
once in a while. Nobody on earth but us — father 
and Motherkins and we four youngsters — knew 
a word about that passage. Kathie and Dolly 
knew there was one, but they didn’t know how 
you got into it, not either from the house, nor 
the woods end of it. I heard Kath once telling 
the girls at school how we had a secret passage, 
made in the Revolution, when Tories were 
around here, but I could tell she had no sort of 
idea where it was. And somebody has got into 
it and taken off that box with the coins in it! 

[ 149 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Isn’t it tough luck? What do you suppose 
Kathie will say, or her father, for that matter? 
You see they are valuable. The minute Pops 
came home and told about the fuss, how mad with 
you Kathie was, I thought of the coins, and made 
up my mind I’d have them out of there, ready 
to hand her if she came after them this morning 
— as I’m pretty sure she will. So I got right 
out after them the first thing — and there you 
are! Or there they’re not!” Mark waved his 
hands outward as if to signify a flight. 

“Well, of all awful things!” said Isabel slowly. 

“It is awful,” agreed Mark. “It’s bad as it 
can be to lose the coins, but it’s almost worse to 
have somebody know that secret passage and be 
wriggling around in it! I never in all my life 
heard of anything like these things — father going 
to lose that money almost certainly; that queer 
little man in the woods, and the same man asking 
Mr. Burke for father, and our club room entered, 
and now this ! Why, you’d hardly know Green- 
acres!” 

“Well,” said Isabel slowly, weighing her 
words, “I don’t like it; I’m sure I don’t like it, 
but I do think it is interesting — all but your 
money being taken away; that’s just awful, every 
side and up and down of it ! But the other things 
are exciting! And interesting! We always knew 
[ 150 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

nothing would happen when we went to the 
woods, but now you can’t tell.” 

“Ah, but that makes me feel that I can’t tell 
whether you may go there now,” interposed Mrs. 
Lindsay. “I am far from pleased to think that 
our safe woods are invaded by this queer little 
man.” 

“Oh, mother, please don’t be afraid!” begged 
Isabel. “And he is in lots of other places. Mr. 
Burke met him over toward Hertonsburg. We 
wouldn’t like it a bit if we couldn’t go. We’ll 
take Semp ; he could hold a man down. Mark’s 
father says he would take any one by the throat 
who tried to touch us, and you know how big and 
strong he is. Besides, the man seemed to be 
afraid himself; he ran away when the girls came 
that day. We want to go to Chateau Branche 
this very morning!” 

“Oh, not to-day! Wait till your father de- 
cides it. I think, perhaps, some one must lie in 
wait for this queer little man and find out about 
him. The loss of the coins puts a new color on 
the case; that is theft, you know,” said Mrs. 
Lindsay. 

“But maybe he found them in the secret pass- 
age and didn’t think they belonged to any one; 
maybe he isn’t a thief, Mrs. Lindsay,” cried 
Mark. 


[ 151 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“Jack-in-the-Box, you are defending him, less 
from charity than because you want to be free 
to roam the woods as you always have !” laughed 
Isa’s mother. “And so do I want you still free, 
but we must wait to find out more, so be con- 
tent to keep away from Chateau Branche a short 
time, please, dear!” 

“All right, motherdy, but we want to go!” said 
Isabel kissing her mother, and going with Mark 
to find Prue, and to work in their gardens at 
Hawthorne House. The exciting events of the 
recent days had given a chance to the weeds 
which they were quick to use, and, to be quite 
truthful, the children’s enthusiasm for gardening 
cooled in proportion as the weather warmed, nor 
had their first trip to market their produce 
yielded the fortune that they had hoped to count. 

Prue came out tying a last ribbon on her tight, 
light braid of hair; she had seen Isabel and Mark 
coming and wanted to lose no time. 

She listened with tense attention, frowning 
severely, to the story of the disappearance of 
Kathie’s ancient coins. 

“Well, she will be madder’n a whole army,” 
said Prue when it was ended. “She will be right 
up this morning to get them, and when she 
doesn’t !” Prue did not attempt to describe 


[ 152 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

what would happen when Kathie did not get her 
coins. 

But, my goodness gracious, she knew where 
they were, and she let them be put there!” cried 
Isabel. “It isn’t our fault, is it?” 

“When you’re mad, you’re mad, and you’ve 
got to blame somebody,” said Prue, with deep 
knowledge of human injustice. “Kathie will 
blame us; you’ll see! I say let’s go down the 
secret passage first, and look for the box again. 
I’ll run back and get my searchlight, and I’ll 
borrow mother’s. We’ll go right in there and 
hunt !” 

Now this was a much more heroic proposition 
than it sounds, coming from Prue. She was 
deadly afraid of spiders, snakes, rats, of black 
beetles almost most of all, and she had always 
had a horror of the secret passage greater than 
Isabel’s, because she felt sure that it was in- 
habited by all these things and others similar to 
them which she had never seen, and she had not 
Isabel’s imagination to turn the passage into a 
romantic story and thus off -set the dread of rep- 
tiles, insects and beasts. 

Isabel knew how Prue hated to explore the 
underground way that had been a refuge 
in Revolutionary days. She stopped short and 
regarded her friend with respectful admiration. 

[ 153 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“You are great, Prue! You are truly great! 
I think if there were a war you’d fire cannon, 
like Molly Stark, and hang out flags like Barbara 
Frietchie, and do all those things, though when 
there isn’t a war you don’t seem quite so brave,” 
Isa declared. 

“I don’t know what I’d do, but, sometimes, I 
suppose you’ve got to do what you hate. I’d 
heaps rather fire — well, hang out a flag, anyway! 
— than walk on a squishy bug, or something,” 
said Prue trying to look modest. 

There was a walled opening to the secret pass- 
age in the woods, at the place where Isabel and 
Prue had first seen Mark; they had dubbed it 
“the Toy Shop” because there was where they 
got their Jack-in-the-Box, and again Mark was 
a “jack-in-the-box” because he appeared and dis- 
appeared through this opening. 

The opening was so thoroughly hidden by 
shrubbery and trees that the little girls had not 
then suspected it was there, nor could it be better 
seen now. 

This morning Mark went down first and 
turned back to help Isabel and Prue. Prue had 
first nobly gone back after searchlights and had 
overtaken the other two, breathless, scared, but 
resolute. 

Both little girls were struggling to hold their 
[ 154 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

skirts tight around their legs, which did not help 
their progress. 

Mark laughed at them as he watched this 
strapped-in descent. 

“Nothing will get on you!” he said. 

“It’s all very well for you, Mark Hawthorne, 
in knickers, but we’ve got skirts, and anything 
could cling on them,” said Prue sternly. “It 
makes me sick!” She persisted nevertheless, and 
the three w T ent rapidly to the spot where Mark 
said he had set the box of coins. 

“You see!” said Mark, holding up the search- 
light which he carried to show a rock in the side 
of the wall with nothing on it. “I put it there 
and now where is it?” 

“Let’s hunt all around — but of course it didn’t 
walk off itself, and whoever took it would take it 
— I mean carry it off!” Isabel said. “Oh, dear, 
oh, dear! We are in trouble! Kathie will be 
nearly crazy, and there’s her father! He will — 
why, we can’t tell what he’ll do to us ! W e hardly 
know him at all; we don’t know whether he’s 
one of those awful stern men, or not! Oh, if 
only we hadn’t brought it here! But how could 
we guess there was a thief around, in this place? 
Do you suppose it is a den of thieves now ?” 

The secret passage was full of turns, dark, 
sharp turns, around which no one could see; only 

[ 155 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


by making the turn and throwing a light ahead 
could whatever chanced to be around these 
bends be seen. 

“I am not a thief!” came a voice out of the 
darkness as Isabel finished speaking. 

Prue shrieked and shrieked. Isabel uttered 
one agonized scream, and fell to trembling silent- 
ly. Mark gasped, almost a groan, and after an 
instant’s pardonable hesitation, went toward the 
sound of the voice. 

“Say, keep off!” the same voice said in a high, 
squeaky tone. “Don’t you come after me! I’ll 
run faster’n you can and I’ll never be caught. 
You stay off. I’ve’s good a right in here’s you 
have; better! If you want that black box of 
money just go look for it where I say, but don’t 
you chase me! Count your turns. Count three 
turns back the way you come. Then go down a 
short little narrow path somebody must of dug 
and got sick of once. There’s a box, and it isn’t 
one penny lighter’n ’twas when I found it. If 
you want it, take it. But I ain’t any more a thief 
than you are, and I won’t let you call me one. 
I’ll make you good’n sorry if you do.” 

“My goodness, whoever you are !” cried Mark, 
his spirits rising as he found a chance to answer 
the mystery. “If you return the box you’re not 
a thief, so why should we call you one?” 

[ 156 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“We’re very much obliged; you are very 
kind,” Isabel managed to say faintly, feeling 
compelled to politeness for the favor done them. 

“I won’t make trouble for kids,” said the voice. 
“Good-by.” 

“Oh, come out and let us see you!” cried Prue, 
all her fear wiped out by the sentiment the voice 
had just expressed, and curiosity seizing her. 

No answer came to this appeal. The children 
called several times, but no sound came in re- 
turn. A bat, aroused by the lights, flapped heav- 
ily across Prue’s head, so close to her face that 
she screamed louder than she had when the voice 
had first startled her. 

“Oh, for mercy’s sake, get the old box and 
come out of here!” she cried. “I don’t want to 
be buried first, and then killed by bats and stuff!” 

Isabel and Mark began to laugh, but there was 
no resisting the fervor of poor Prue’s voice. They 
began to retrace their steps, counting as the voice 
had bade them count. There, at the spot it had 
indicated, they came upon the black box, and, 
as Mark lifted it, he said: 

“It does feel exactly as heavy as ever! Maybe 
it is all right.” 

The children came out of the secret passage at 
the end which led them out into the grounds of 

[1571 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

Hawthorne House. Motherkins came to meet 
them. 

“Kathie and Dolly are waiting for you,” she 
said. “If only you could find the coins!” 

“We have found them, Motherkins!” cried 
Isabel. “Just you wait till you hear!” 

Without delaying for the soap and water that 
the three faces needed after passing through the 
secret passage, the children went in to find 
Kathie and Dolly in the library. 

“We came to get my coins, Mark,” said 
Kathie, ignoring Isabel’s feeble “Hallo,” and not 
so much as seeing Prue, who did not attempt to 
speak to them. 

“All right; they’re here. We went to bring 
them up from where I put them,” said Mark. “I 
don’t know how many there were, but I don’t be- 
lieve any are lost.” 

“Thank you, Mark,” said Kathie with dignity. 
“You needn’t think we’re mad with you, Mark, 
because we’re not. You didn’t ask us mean 
questions!” 

“Nobody did; we all wanted to know if you’d 
been into that room. I asked the question just 
as much as any one else, if that’s all, but there’s 
no sense in being mad about it. Only if mad you 
are, please count me in. It’s just as much my 
[ 158 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

mess as the girls.” Mark spoke so firmly that 
Isabel and Prue were proud of him. 

“Just as you like. Then we’ll be mad with 
you, too. Come, Dolly!” Kathie took the yield- 
ing Dolly under her command with a stern 
glance. Neither Kathie nor Dolly had any desire 
to quarrel with Mark, whom they admired 
greatly, but if he joined himself with Isabel and 
Prue, there was no help for it. Mark escorted 
them to the door, polite in his own home. 

“Good-by; come again!” he said with a laugh 
as they departed. 


[ 159 ] 






CHAPTER XI 


THE SHADOW OF PARTING 

O H, dear, dear!” sighed Isabel watching the 
retreat of Kathie and Dolly, who stalked 
away so wrathily that “they looked as if their 
backs were calling names,” Isabel said. “They 
are staying mad. I hoped they’d be over it when 
they’d had a night’s sleep. Mother says never 
to let the sun go down upon your anger, but they 
did, and they let it rise again, and still they’re 
mad!” 

“Well, I don’t think they’re not speaking is 
half as much consequence as that voice that did 
speak,” said Mark, who could not get up great 
interest in Kathie and Dolly’s doings. “I’d like 
to know who, or what that was.” 

“I should — think — so!” Prue spoke with slow 
and awful emphasis. “It gets worse every 
minute I remember it. I just about can’t stand 
it! Everything is getting so queer ! I wonder if 
we’re asleep and dreaming these things? It’s 
like a queer, mixed-up dream.” 


[ 161 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“All of us asleep, and dreaming the same 
thing?” laughed Mark. “And how could we 
know what the rest of us were dreaming?” 

“We couldn’t. But we could dream we were 
all together and heard the voice, and saw that 
little man. And then I’d only be in your dream, 
or Isa’s, and you’d only be in my dream — Oh, 
mercy! I’ll go crazy!” Prue clapped her hands 
to her head and shook it hard, burrowing her chin 
into her neck wildly. 

“And how could we tell which was the one 
dreaming?” Isabel cried gleefully; she dearly 
liked this sort of game. “There’d only be one 
real one, the other two would be the dream, and 
how should we know which they were? And 
there’s Poppy.” 

“Where?” cried Prue. 

“I mean she saw the queer little man, and the 
only reason she didn’t hear the voice is because 
she wasn’t there, so she had one-half the dream 
and not the other half,” Isabel explained. “I 
sort of think that proves we are awake, but I 
don’t know how it does it. First we saw a queer 
little man without a voice; then we heard a 
voice ” 

“Without a queer little man!” cried Mark. 
“It’s like Alice and the Cheshire cat! She said 
[ 162 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

she’d seen cats without a smile, but never a smile 
without a cat.” 

“If you don’t stop talking about crazy 
things I’ll go crazy myself!” Prue warned them 
sharply. “It’s making me feel all crawly inside 
me. It almost has sense, but it hasn’t any ! It’s 
like trying to catch the wet soap in the bath 
tub. I’m so scared when I think of that awful, 
awful voice I could curl up and die. I declare I 
think Greenacres is getting dreadfully funny!” 

“It wasn’t an awful voice, though; it was a 
pretty nice voice, telling us where to find Kathie’s 
coins,” Isabel reminded her. 

“What puzzles me is why the man — or the 
beast, or the bird, or the ghost, whoever that voice 
belongs to — stole the box, and then right away 
told us where to get it ! What’s the use ?” Mark 
observed. 

“Probably he didn’t steal it; just happened to 
find it and took it.” Isabel clearly saw the differ- 
ence in these two actions, though it might seem 
to another much the same. “Where’s Poppy?” 
she suddenly demanded; it was odd for Poppy 
to absent herself for so long. 

“I don’t know; queer, isn’t it?” said Mark. 
“When we were coming up out of the secret pass- 
age I just barely saw her tearing off through the 
trees, ever so far down the middle path through 

[ 163 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

the woods. ’Tis queer she doesn’t come back, 
now I think of it.” 

“Dare you to go home that way, Prue, and 
see what she’s up to,” said Isa. 

“I’m scared,” Prue admitted honestly, “but 
we’ve got to keep on going into the woods, or else 
there wouldn’t be any use in living at all. So 
I’ll go. You’re probably just as scared as I 
am, anyway, Isabel Lindsay ! And the way you’ll 
do is hold it down, and then not go to sleep to- 
night.” 

“Oh, well, I never pretended not to mind, and 
of course it’s much worse to be afraid of some- 
thing you can’t understand than of burglars, or 
rats, or anything sensible,” Isabel did not shrink 
from admitting her nervousness. 

“Let’s go home through the woods, Prue. We 
can play we are pioneer mothers daring wild 
beasts and Indians; that will help a whole lot. 
If we put off going it will be much worse when 
we do go, as you said. And let’s start now ." 

“Mark, Mark dear, will you come here? I 
want you,” called Motherkins. 

“Oh, I was going part of the way with you,” 
said Mark regretfully. “Now I can’t, so good- 
by. I’ll see you after a while, maybe.” 

“We’d rather not have you come; we’ve got to 
get used to being brave alone,” said Prue. 

[ 164 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“Good-by. If anything should happen to us, 
why you know where we went.” 

“Oh, gracious, Prue, don’t!” shuddered Isabel, 
profoundly disturbed by the awful picture of 
herself and Prue lying wounded in the woods 
which this suggestion at once called up. 

Prue and Isabel wound their arms around each 
other for mutual support in their adventure, but 
resolutely faced the woods and walked toward 
them, not hurrying, but not loitering, with that 
steady pace that betokens steady purpose. 

“Let’s go the longest way, past Chateau 
Branche, then we’ll know we didn’t get out of 
one thing because we were ’f raid-cats,” proposed 
Prue. 

“Well, if here isn’t Bunkie coming to meet 
us!” cried Isabel surprised. “I left him at home 
because he might get lost in the secret passage, 
I always think. How could he know we were 
coming here when we didn’t know it ourselves?” 

The little dog came tearing toward Isabel, ears 
streaming backward, tail wagging as fast as it 
could at the speed he was making. He leaped 
up to his mistress with a great show of joy, 
gave Prue a rapid, but cordial welcome, then 
turned in the direction from which he had come, 
looking back to see that they were coming. At 

[ 165 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


that moment the little girls heard a sound of wail- 
ing and stood still. 

“Now what’s that?” cried Prue sharply. 
“There’s something else awful, and it’s quite 
new.” 

“Doesn’t it sound horrible? But maybe it’s 
a panther — no, there aren’t any! Maybe it’s a 
wild cat, and maybe they cry the way panthers 
do. They say you can’t tell a panther from a 
baby; they fool hunters; don’t you remember? 
In books I’ve seen that.” Isabel was trying to 
be cheerful, though her teeth almost chattered, 
but Prue was not appreciative. 

“Yes, and maybe it’s an orphan asylum and 
they are real babies crying,” she said scornfully. 
“There are just as many orphan asylums in 
these woods as there are panthers and wild cats. 
Shall we go on, or do you say to turn off right 
here ?” 

“I say to go on,” answered Isa, pale but heroic. 

Their decision rejoiced Bunkie, who while they 
hesitated had been imploring them by every sign 
he knew to come on. 

The blood curdling wailing continued and 
grew louder as they advanced; it took strong 
resolution to proceed. Prue clutched Isabel’s 
arm so tight that she found it black and blue that 
night when she went to bed, though she did not 
[ 166 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

feel it then, while Isabel held Prue’s side in a 
grasp that ticklish Prue could not have borne for 
a moment if her mind had not been too fully 
occupied to notice it. 

Slowly, trembling from head to foot, these 
Greenacres heroines advanced, and their cour- 
age was rewarded, for in the midst of the wailing 
two words came out clear, and these words were : 
“Oh gosh!” 

It was Poppy! There was no mistaking the 
way she uttered her favorite vent for her feelings, 
and Isabel and Prue laughed out in their relief, 
though in another instant they began to feel 
troubled to find Poppy like this, prone on her 
face, crying desperately, alone in the woods, in 
which she, as well as Isabel and Prue, were be- 
ginning to feel afraid to wander. 

Bunkie darted ahead and up to Poppy, nosing 
her anxiously, but she ungratefully pushed him 
away, not being minded to accept his pity then. 

“Why, Poppy! Why, Poppy dear, what is it? 
Is anything the matter?” cried Isabel and Prue 
together, running up and dropping on their 
knees beside Poppy’s prostrate, sob-shaken little 
body. 

At this Poppy’s crying began afresh, so vio- 
lently that Isa and Prue were frightened and 

[ 167 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


there was no hope of getting a word from her. 

“May as well wait,” said Prue, sitting back on 
her heels with a resigned despair. 

“Oh, try to stop, try to tell us what is wrong, 
Poppy!” begged Isabel. “Is anything wrong?” 

“Don’t you — don’t you know? Didn’t no one 
tell you?” Poppy managed to gasp, losing her 
hold on English. 

“No, indeed!” Isabel said. “Tell us, quick!” 

“It’s settled!” Poppy moaned, and fell back 
into worse crying. 

“For pity’s sake!” exclaimed Prue impatient- 
ly. “What is settled, Poppy Meiggs?” 

But Isabel had a sudden enlightenment. 

“Oh, Poppy, is it really? Oh, Poppy!” she 
cried. 

“Well, for pity’s sake!” Prue exclaimed again 
desperately. “Are you going to be a puzzle, too! 
How do you know what she means?” 

“She means it is settled that Mr. Hawthorne 
has to lose the money that Mr. Ditson left to him, 
and that they will have to give up that dear, dear 
house, and Motherkins’ garden and everything, 
don’t you, Poppy?” said Isabel pale to her lips 
over her shocking discovery. 

Poppy nodded hard, raising her head to do so, 
and instantly burying her face in the moss again. 

[ 168 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

That’s not the whole of it,” she said in a 
muffled voice. 

4 ‘Oh, not, not that they’re going away!” cried 
Isabel. 

“They are, too!” Poppy sat up suddenly and 
spoke out of a gust of anger. “We shall go 
away, away! Out of Greenacres! Mr. Haw- 
thorne can’t get anything here, he said — he 
means work. He’ll be poor; he must work. 
They’ll go away, away! And I sha’n’t see you 
no more, Isabel, my darling, dear ! But Hurrah ! 
They can’t take him along, my own, own horse! 
They can’t feed him; it costs. And I love him 
more’n anything in all this world, and they’ll 
leave him here. Oh, Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah!” 
Poppy’s voice rose higher with each repetition 
of the name, till it became a shriek, and had the 
effect of cheering. 

But Poppy was far away from a cheer. She 
fell down again on the ground and pulled up 
handfuls of mossy turf, kicking the while with 
such violence that her striped gingham skirt flut- 
tered as if it were in a gale and one of her shoes 
flew off. 

“There’s no use kicking, Poppy,” remarked 
Prue, picking up the shoe and stooping to re- 
place it. “Hold still, and I’ll put your shoe 
on again. Goodness knows it makes me sick, 

[ 169 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


if it’s true that Mark and all are going away. 
How do you know it is true?” 

“I heard Motherkins and Mr. Gilbert talking 
about it. They said the lawyers had written a 
letter and said there wasn’t any show to help it. 
And Motherkins kind of cried a little, then she 
said never mind, Gilbert, because I shall not 
mind much, and I know you feel bad for me. 
And that was worse’n her crying. Nearly kills 
me when she bucks up brave that way! And 
they said they’d tell Mark’s soon as you two’d 
gone, and now you’re here they likely telling 
him. And, oh, Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah!” 
Once more Poppy gave herself up to the anguish 
of the thought of parting from her horse, whose 
cheerful name so ill-fitted this use of it. 

“Now, Poppy, I’m going to tell you some- 
thing,” said Isabel in her sweet little womanly 
way, putting aside her own sharp pain over this 
news to try to comfort Poppy. “If you don’t 
want to leave Hurrah, you needn’t. My father 
and mother were talking about this, what would 
happen if the Hawthornes had to give up the 
money, and father said — they both said — that 
you could come to live with us, if you wanted to, 
and stay right on in Greenacres, and keep on in 
our same school. And father said he’d keep 
Hurrah for you; he said he was sure you’d feel 
[ 170 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

perfectly terrible to give him up. So now you 
know all about it. You needn’t give up Hurrah, 
nor Greenacres, if you’d rather not. You can 
stay with us and Hurrah’ll be yours just the 
same.” 

Poor Poppy! She was in a bad state of nerves 
from grief and her tempestuous crying, and at 
best she too easily flew into a temper. 

Now she sprang up like a rocket, on her feet, 
and waved her arms up and down, as if she 
wanted to hit something either in the sky, or be- 
neath it. 

“I guess I won’t! I guess I won’t! I guess I 
won’t!” she screamed. “What d’jer think I am! 
Leave Motherkins ! Leave her ! Didn’t she take 
me in when she was poor’n poorhouses, and take 
care o’ me when nobody wouldn’t, but her, but 
went and took all the rest o’ the Meiggses, ’cause 
there wa’n’t none of ’em red headed and freckled 
noses but me? I guess I won’t live with your 
folks, not if I do love you cartloads, Isabel Lind- 
say, and I won’t stay, not with no horse, Hurrah, 
nor nobody, ’stead o’ Mis’ Hawthorne — Mother- 
kins. So there!” 

“Well, Poppy, I’m sorry,” faltered Isabel 
sincerely. “I didn’t mean to make you mad. 
You said you loved Hurrah best of anything, so 

[ 171 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


I thought you’d like to know you might have him 
if you really did love him best. That’s all.” 

“Any gump’d know I didn’t mean Hurrah 
’stead of Motherkins,” said Poppy still disgusted 
and offended. Then with one of her sudden 
changes, she threw her arms around Isabel and 
half crushed her in a tremendous hug, crying, 
but with a new and gentler misery, as she did so. 

“Oh, you darling Isa,” she moaned. “I’m the 
nastiest! I’m sorry, Isa! And how shall I ever 
stand it without you?” 

“Well, Poppy,” said Prue, who found Poppy 
trying, as she so often did, “do you think you’re 
the only one feeling bad? Don’t you suppose we 
care? Isn’t Mark — isn’t Mark — our own Jack 
— J ack-in-the-Box ?” 

Prue had great difficulty in getting to the end 
of her sentence, and when she did haltingly reach 
it her own tears were flowing, but quietly. 

“Shall we sit in Chateau Branche just a few 
minutes to get rested so we can go home? I feel 
sort of weak,” said Isabel, and Prue saw that 
she was as white as a white rose petal, even her 
lips colorless; it was Isa’s way to take a blow 
silently, but with tragic intensity. 

They climbed up into their house in the great 
pine, each one thinking how beautifully Mark’s 
father had prepared this for them, as well as 
[ 172 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 


so many other tilings which they enjoyed. And 
Isabel, looking off with great tears on her lashes, 
her gray-blue eyes black from their dilated 
pupils, with black hollows below them, realized 
how she and Prue might come here by and by 
— provided they had the courage to come — and 
sit here, as to-day, without Mark, forever with- 
out Mark. The thought was unbearable. 

Down went Isa’s head on her knees, which she 
was clasping with tense fingers. 

“Oh, it’s too awful, too awful!” she murmured. 
“It can’t be true! I’m going to hope something 
will happen! I’m going to pray for it! Let’s 
all pray for something to happen to let us keep 
our Jack-in-the-Box.” 

“But it won’t,” said Prue dismally. 

“It might !” cried Isabel, raising her head and 
tossing her hair out of her eyes. “We must be- 
lieve it will, and pray hard!” 

“It could, couldn’t it, Isa?” cried Poppy, en- 
kindled by the idea. “Should we call this Church 
Branche, instead of Chateau Branche, and pray 
and pray, right here?” 

“Oh, here comes Mark! See how slowly he’s 
coming, and Semp marching beside him! Oh, it 
must be true when he comes so very slowly!” said 
Prue, before Poppy’s question could be an- 
swered. 


[ 173 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“Are you up here?” asked Mark preparing to 
swing himself up into Chateau Branche. 

“We’re coming down, Mark,” said Isabel. 
“Don’t come up ; we have to go home.” 

The three little girls descended, Mark quietly 
offering each his hand. It was as if he had grown 
up since they had last seen him, so grave, so kind, 
so gentle was his manner. 

Isabel was last to get down. She stood where 
she alighted and looked at Mark, and quietly 
Mark looked at her, his lips twitching. 

“It is all true,” said Isabel slowly. “I hoped 
Poppy was mistaken. It is all true that — that — 
you are going away, Jack-in-the-Box.” 

“Hard luck, Isa,” muttered Mark. “But 
daddy has no chance at good business here, and 
he has in Boston. Yes, Isa, it is true. Daddy 
and Motherkins told me themselves. I — I — I’m 
horribly sorry, Isa, but we’ve got to stand it the 
best that’s in us.” 

“If we can stand it at all that’ll be the way we 
must,” said Isabel. “It will take the best we 
can do even to live, let alone stand it! Will — 
will you go soon, Jack-in-the-Box, dear?” 

“About September first, daddy thought,” said 
Mark. 

“Oh!” cried Isabel brightening; her mind had 
been keyed up to a parting at once. “A lot can 
[17 4 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

happen before then. We’re going to pray for 
something to stop it, and that gives us timer 
She smiled quite cheerfully, as if the working 
of a miracle was made more probable by allow- 
ing more time for it. 


[ 175 ] 












« 























» 



/ 


CHAPTER XII 


MERRILY PUTTING OFF SORROW 

OU’RE to come home with Poppy ana me. 



JL Isa and Prue; Motlierkins said so,” said 
Mark. “She was going to call up your mothers, 
and ask them to let you stay to supper. She said 
we might get it ourselves. We’re going to have 
ice cream.” 

“Whatever in this world for V 3 demanded Prue. 
“Funny time to have a party when we’re too 
miserable to talk!” 

“Motherkins said we must have all the good 
times, and just as good times, as we can while we 
— before we — go away.” Mark’s voice trembled 
over the end of this sentence. “And of course it 
isn’t a party; just ourselves puttering into things 
in the kitchen, the way we always do.” 

“And of course we’ll love it!” Isabel came to 
Mark’s rescue. “Poppy, try not to show how 
you feel about Hurrah, and don’t cry before 
Motherkins.” 

“H’uh! Don’t you s’pose she knows about 


[ 177 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

Hurrah and me? I’ll bet she hates to leave him 
her ownself!” said Poppy with a scornful sniff. 
“I b’lieve you’n Prue’s full as likely to cry as 
me,” 

“Well, we’ll all do our very best to be jolly,” 
said Isabel. 

“I’m saddest now in my stomach; it aches, I 
cried so hard,” said Poppy, and the other three 
could not help laughing, which proved to be a 
helpful start toward cheerfulness. 

Bunkie, blissfully ignorant of the misfortune 
that had befallen his friends, ran back and forth 
ahead of them as the children started for Haw- 
thorne House. Pincushion came to meet them 
down the grass at the rear of the house, talking, 
as she always did, with every step, softly cooing: 
“M-m-m-m,” at the sight of Bunkie whom the 
little cat loved with as great fervor as when she 
was a kitten. 

“Oh, and there are Bunkie and Cushla! They 
love each other so ; how will they stand part ” 

“Prue!” Isabel interrupted Prue’s lament. 
“Now, don’t begin that! Aren’t we forgetting 
every single minute, with all our might, so why 
do you want to remind us?” 

There was no chance to be dismal in meeting 
Motherkins. She stood at the top of the steps 
waving her hands girlishly. Behind her stood the 
[ 178 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

grim person who had come to Hawthorne House 
to do the housework, and was so exceedingly 
gloomy that she made everybody else cheerful. 
Flossie Doolittle was her name, not one bit suit- 
able, for she was a great worker, and nothing 
could have been less like her than “Flossie.” But 
the trifling name, worn by the solemn and rather 
elderly woman, was so funny that the children 
never got used to it. 

“Ice cream, my guests !” called Motherkins the 
moment the children were within reach of her 
voice. “My son Gilbert, your Mr. Dadde, has 
brought us up a quantity of ice, and I have cream 
so heavy it will hold up a spoon ! Flossie is going 
to let you do anything that you please in her 
kitchen, and not interfere, unless you ask her 
help. And I am going to get out the plates you 
like best — those thin French ones with the bronze- 
gold border — and we shall have one of those nicest 
parties, the kind that you don’t plan, and which 
are not celebrating anything, but having a good 
time. What will each of you make for supper? 
And what sort of cream shall it be? We’ll have 
to take a vote on that.” 

“Well,” said Prue with a vivid remembrance 
of an attempt she had once made to get up a half 
dozen delicacies, and what a failure it had been, 
“I say don’t try a whole lot of things. Don’t 

[ 179 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


each of us make something different, but let’s 
make about two things, and work together. W e 
don’t need such a lot — I think ice cream is enough 
for supper.” 

“Prudence always proves true to her name!” 
laughed Motherkins. “That’s a sensible sugges- 
what shall it be?” 

“I can frazzle — I mean frizzle dried beef nice,” 
said Prue, and they all laughed. 

“I can do potatoes in the oven, sliced and 
baked in milk,” said Isabel. “We could use some 
of the milk you skimmed for the ice cream, 
Motherkins.” 

“Economical Isa! And that sort of potatoes is 
delicious. But not everything done in milk, 
please! Prue, what else besides frizzled beef 
could you offer us?” 

“I’ll make cake,” said Prue, and they saw that 
she did not quite enjoy having her beef laughed 
at. 

“Oh, Motherkins, there’s cold chicken left! If 
only you’d let me make those croquet ball things 
— you showed me how you did it; I’ll bet I 
could!” 

Poppy spoke as if she had long yearned to do 
this. 

“Croquettes, funny Poppy!” cried Mother- 

[ 180 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

kins. “But they are balls, it’s true. I don’t be- 
lieve you could ever go through two wickets at a 
time with one! Croquettes be it; isn’t that 
enough?” 

“Too much,” said Prue decidedly. “What 
sort of cream?” 

“Let’s make ourselves into a convention; daddy 
told me how they nominate the president. I 
nominate chocolate ice cream. Anybody else 
want my candidate?” asked Mark. 

“I do,” said Poppy. 

“I don’t; I want brown sugar caramel cream,” 
said Isabel. 

“O-o-oh, so do I!” cried Prue, smacking her 
lips. 

“Convention is evenly divided — unless you’ll 
vote, Motherkins-wee ?” said Mark. 

Mrs. Hawthorne shook her head decidedly. 
“All your choice, this supper,” she said. 

“Then one of you must vote with us, or one of 
us with you,” said Mark. “I don’t care; I’ll say 
caramel ” 

“No, listen!” interrupted Isa. “I say make 
plain cream, without any flavor, or else the ween- 
iest little drop of vanilla in it — and make a choco- 
late sauce to pour over it. We all like that.” 

“That*s the dark horse in the convention!” cried 
Mark. “When they don’t get enough votes for 

[ 181 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


one candidate they put up a bran new one no- 
body thought of, and get together on him. We’ll 
have the chocolate sauce candidate, the dark 
horse Senator Isabel nominated!” 

“It is dark; chocolate sauce always is,” ob- 
served literal-minded Prue thoughtfully. 

“I suppose I may’s well get out pans for you 
young ones; young ones always uses a great 
many they no need to,” said Flossie mournfully. 
“I think you’ve got comp’ny to your party un- 
expected. There’s a wagon drivin’ in, and if I’m 
not much mistook it’s the bottle man again that 
come here not so long back, and is a friend o’ 
Poppy’s, who ought to be called by her name and 
not such a no-name ’tall as Poppy, even though 
her name is Gladys, which is by far too silly and 
ornamental for the Meiggs part of her name.” 

“Well, you should worry!” said Poppy indig- 
nantly. “Oh, Motherkins, it is Mr. Thomas 
Burke, 906 North Street, Hertonsburg, and his 
wife’s along!” 

Poppy had run to the window in the pantry 
from which she could see the barn and her friends 
alighting from the wagon, which they were leav- 
ing in the barnyard. She ran back with her 
tidings, her face radiant; she always gave Mr. 
Burke’s address when she spoke of him as if it 
were part of his name. 

[182] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

‘Tin glad that they’ve come,” said Mother- 
kins heartily. “And the moral of this, as the 
Duchess would say, is always to have a party 
ready in case unexpected guests arrive.” 

She went out to welcome and bring in the 
Burkes, and the children looked after her admir- 
ingly. Sweet and calm, ready to give the chil- 
dren a good time and to take part in it, who that 
had not known would have guessed that brave 
little Motherkins had received a hard blow and 
bore a heavy heart in her breast? 

“I hope I shall grow up like her, just exactly 
like my mother and her!” said Isabel, and it was 
not necessary to say why, for Prue echoed : 

“So do I hope I shall!” 

Poppy had run after Motherkins and now re- 
turned leading a large, sunny looking woman, 
with a broad hat trimmed with cornflowers, much 
askew from riding in the jolting wagon, crown- 
ing disordered hair. 

“Yes,” she said, continuing something she had 
been telling Motherkins, who followed her into 
the room, “my man had to be over beyond here 
to-morrow, so he came around this way to-day 
to tell your husband — I mean your son, ma’am — 
something about that little man he met one day, 
as he was telling you the time he was here pre- 
vious. It seems that little hunchback man had 

[ 183 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


something on his mind to do with you folks. He 
was to the doctor’s over to Hertonsburg and was 
hinting at it. When Poppy wrote us — ’twasn’t 
just so easy to read, but we made out you was 
in trouble and a-going to lose your fine home, and 
so we kinder put two and two together, as the 
saying is, and wondered if the little man was 
mixed up with your trouble some way/’ 

“Poppy wrote you about it?” Motherlands 
looked at Poppy with surprise, and a little disap- 
proval. 

“I told Mis’ Burke that most likely you was 
goin’ to get poor again, and I asked her, if you 
did, could they take me into the bottle business 
and let me work for ’em? And I said I’d let ’em 
use my horse — Hurrah, I mean — and I’d tag 
along behind on the buckboard, working for ’em, 
if they’d take me into business,” said Poppy with 
great dignity. 

Mrs. Burke winked at Motherkins mysterious- 
ly, though a child less bright than Poppy could 
not have missed that wink, nor failed to see that 
it meant admiration of herself. 

“She did that, ma’am,” said Mrs. Burke. 
“We’d be proud to travel like a circus, as Tom 
said, with Poppy following the big wagon, but 
we didn’t want to make a bargain by mail, not 
letting you in on it.” 

[ 184 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“Were having a kind of a party,” said Poppy, 
changing an unpleasant for a pleasant subject, 
“and we’d ought to be fixing things.” 

“Leave me help!” said Mrs. Burke, instantly 
unbuttoning and rolling up her sleeves. “I know 
how to do most anything, if I do say it, and I 
ain’t fond of not doin’ most anything, all the 
time — I hate loafin’ !” 

So in a short time the kitchen hummed with in- 
dustry. Isabel was slicing potatoes ; Poppy was 
shredding chicken from its bones ; Prue was beat- 
ing eggs, and Mark, pinned up in a roller towel, 
was scraping chocolate for the sauce, a dark 
streak on one cheek that suggested — but it was 
not sweetened chocolate, so perhaps he had not 
been taking toll-tastes of his material. 

When the table was set — Flossie had attended 
to that at a hint from Motherkins — Isabel 
brought in her potatoes in their casserole, trying 
not to look proud of the wrinkled brownness of 
their milky top. But when they were served she 
tried — less successfully — not to look mortified; 
the slices of potatoes were hard; the milk had 
boiled and browned, but the potatoes were raw. 

Poppy’s croquettes fell apart when they were 
taken out of the boiling fat, and she had not been 
sure that she had salted them, so she had put in a 
generous amount, which, as it was the second salt- 

[ 185 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


ing, made the croquettes something to taste once, 
choke over and forever after to avoid. 

“Oh, well, who wants anything but ice creaifi 
and cake when it’s around, anyway?” asked 
Poppy, winking back her tears of mortification. 

“Got a whopping freezerful!” cried Mark. “I 
thought of a way to make it three kinds, too! 
First, plain — and it’s good that way; it’s rich. 
Then with chocolate sauce over it. Then with 
strawberry jam over it. Flossie said we might 
do that, and it’s great.” 

“Guessing, or knowledge, Mark?” hinted his 
father. 

Mark laughed. “Knowledge; I tasted it,” he 
owned up. 

Mark served the cream. Eight saucers were 
brought in by him heaped and running over. 

“Oh, Mark, dear, where are we to put the 
sauce? I am sure there is a pint of ice cream in 
this saucer ! Poppy, dear, please hand me another 
plate to put half of this on,” cried Motherkins. 

“Oh, Motherkins, the freezer is full and it holds 
two gallons!” remonstrated Mark. “Don’t take 
any off ; we’ve as much again all around.” 

“Sure you can pack it !” said Mr. Burke, speak- 
ing for the first time. 

“Thank you, Mr. Burke; this boy cares more 
for the safety of the cream than for his poor 
[ 186 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

little grandmother!” said Motherkins patheti- 
cally. 

“Eat a crater in the top first, and then put on 
sauce to fill it,” advised Prue, rapidly taking 
helpings of cream from the top of her piled-up 
plate, carefully keeping the sides alike by turning 
the spoon around like a drill. “I think my cake 
is all right.” 

“Your cake is delicious, Prue,” said Mr. Haw- 
thorne, though everybody else laughed at Prue. 
“And the ice cream is too good for it to grieve 
us if we can’t find room for sauce over it. This 
is a nice party!” 

“Oh, we have nice parties! We have nice 
parties!” Isabel’s voice quavered as she said this 
and she bent forward and scooped out the middle 
of her cream to hide her emotion, scooping so 
hard that the melted cream at the base of the cone 
overflowed the edge of her plate without her 
seeing it. 

For a moment there was a dangerous tendency 
on the part of the four children to tears; it was 
easy to understand that Isabel was thinking of 
the day, now drawing near, when there would be 
no more of these impromptu good times. 

“Well!” It was Mr. Burke who saved the day 
by speaking as if he were unconscious of this dan- 
ger. “What I would be sayin’ is that if Mrs. 

[ 187 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Hawthorne would trust me an’ my wife, an’ well 
she may, for we’d look after Poppy our best an’ 
Mrs. Burke’s best is as good as best comes, we’d 
take Poppy along to-morrow for a trip. We’ll 
be coming this way again, back on our tracks, 
three days from now, an’ Poppy might harness 
up her Arabian race horse an’ follow along on 
the buckboard, an’ try how she’d like the bush 
ness. What do you say to it?” 

“Oh, yes! Oh, yes!” Poppy started up, clap- 
ping her hands. Then she stopped, and fell 
back in her chair with a sudden gust of tears. 
“Oh, no! Oh, no; I couldn’t! I couldn’t leave 
Isabel for so long, not now — nor Prue,” she 
added, but plainly as an afterthought. 

“Well, if that’s the only objection, take them 
along,” suggested Mr. Burke. “An’ Mark, too. 
Even if you ain’t parting from him, like the girls 
here, it’ll do no harm to have him with us. If 
it’s too big a pull for Hurrah’s well-known deli- 
cacy of constitution, there’s room in the wagon 
for the lot of ye, or any one of ye, to ride amongst 
me an’ Mrs. Tommy Burke an’ the bottles.” 

“And sell our garden truck, the way we 
planned!” cried Prue. “It’s ready this minute! 
We’ve got to sell it, because that’s why we raised 
it, and we said we would, even if it is too late to 
save up money enough for this house.” 

[ 188 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“Might we, Mrs. Hawthorne? If you said 
Poppy and Mark could go, I know mother would 
think I could. I’d love it.” Isabel leaned over 
the table, her eyes shining, her lips parted by 
her quick breath. 

“I don’t see any objections. It would be great 
sport for you,” said Motherkins. 

“You’re such a darling!” cried Prue. “You 
always see why things are nice, just as we do. 
Hurry up with that cream, Mark. I’ve got to 
go up to the Club Room for the scales.” 

“What for?” asked Mark, filling the crater he 
had made in the middle of his ice cream with a 
great spoonful of chocolate syrup. “My, but it’s 
luscious ! I will not hurry !” 

“To weigh our vegetables. I left the scales up 
there.” Prue nearly choked herself with ice 
cream covered with strawberry jam; she did not 
mind that the others laughed. “We’ll be gypsy- 
ing. We’ll sleep outdoors, shan’t we ? I want to ! 
Poppy and Isa and I will roll up in blankets 
and sleep on the buckboard! Mark can sleep in 
the wagon, or use his father’s tent that he used 
to have last summer. Oh, Mr. Burke, you are 
an angel!” 

“I’ll be after getting a new sign painted: ‘T. 
Burke, Angel. Dealer in Glass Bottles,’ ” said 
Mr. Burke with his twinkle. 


[ 189 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“Come with me,” said Prue to Isa, as she has- 
tily took her last spoonful of ice cream, so large 
a spoonful that she clapped her hand to her 
cheek, for it made her teeth ache. 

Isa followed her out of the door and up to the 
Club Room. Nobody had visited the room that 
day. As the little girls opened the door and 
rushed in, being in a great hurry to get the 
scales, they stopped short and looked around, 
then stared at each other. 

The couch was pulled forward, its cover 
thrown off, its pillows piled up and the top one 
dented with the unmistakable impression of a 
head in it. 

“Some one has slept here!” cried Prue. 

“And it surely wasn’t Kathie,” added Isabel, 
pointing to a cigar stub and ashes and burnt 
matches which lay on one of the saucers of their 
cherished set of cups and saucers. 


[ 190 ] 


CHAPTER XIII 


GYPSYING 

T HE children stampeded down stairs. 

“Some one slept in the Club Room last 
night !” Isa shouted. “Some one’s been there! 
Not Kathie, because there’s the end of a cigar on 
the table.” 

“It wouldn’t be Kathie if there weren’t a 
cigar,” said Prue. “Kathie wouldn’t come there 
to sleep!” 

Mr. Hawthorne looked at his mother, she at 
him, and Mr. Burke gave his wife a startled look 
which he tried to change into a careless one and 
carry on to the sideboard, as if he were examin- 
ing the silver on it, because he did not want to 
alarm the children more than they were already 
frightened. They could easily see, however, that 
the four grown people took their announcement 
seriously. 

“There’s no kind of use in letting this go on 
longer without trying to find out who is at the 
bottom of all these mysterious happenings,” said 

[ 191 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Mr, Hawthorne. “I believe I’ll sleep in that 
room for a while.” 

“Oh, daddy, let me!” implored Mark. 

“You’re going gypsying with the Burkes in 
the morning, aren’t you? You can’t watch that 
room till you get back; then we’ll see.” Mark’s 
father evaded a direct answer. “If you are going 
you ought to be ready to-night, by the way. 
Gather your garden products while it is still light, 
and get together whatever you need for an early 
start.” 

“Is that really a go? I was afraid it was fool- 
ing,” Mark said, looking delighted and forget- 
ting the mysteiy of the Club Room for the mo- 
ment. 

“It’s a go an’ a going ’s far ’s I’m concerned, 
my young Haw berry,” said Mr. Burke, look- 
ing with admiration at Mark’s eager, handsome 
face, all alight with anticipation. 

“You are nice to us, and we like you a great 
deal, Mr. Burke. It’s a pity you haven’t any 
children to go around with you,” Prue said in her 
elderly fashion. 

“Whist!” said Mr. Burke, glancing anxiously 
at his wife to see if she heard. 

“Oh, Prue, you mustn’t speak of that; they 
died!” whispered Isabel nervously. 

“We’d take Poppy along the whole season, if 
[ 192 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

she’d come,” Mr. Burke said loudly. “But it’s 
not every youngster we’d say it of.” 

“I wouldn’t go, much ’s I love you. Come on 
and pick vegettubles,” said Poppy, pulling Isa- 
bel out of the room by her belt. 

“I’ve gotter curry Hurrah. I thought you 
done — did — it with curry powder, but you don’t; 
Mr. Thomas Burke showed me how.” 

“You can’t reach to curry him; he’s a tall horse, 
and you are a whippet, as the Burkes say,” Mark 
reminded her. 

“I’ll curry all I can reach,” Poppy answered, 
not at all discouraged. “It’s elegant to do. You 
use something you call a comb, but ’tain’t, and 
you kind of hiss through your teeth when you 
rub him. Mr. Burke showed me. He says the 
hiss you mustn’t leave out, ’cause no one ever does 
it right who ain’t a hisser currying. I got heaps 
of radishes now to sell, and my second peas. We 
gotter hustle and pick things.” 

“My string beans are as good as the best, and 
I’ll have a bushel to take, I’m pretty sure,” Mark 
said proudly. 

“It’s been pretty dry for my lettuce, but some 
is tender,” said Prue anxiously. 

“You can see for yourselves my flowers are 
lovely. But I wonder if there’s any use of tak- 
ing them to sell?” sighed Isabel. 


[ 193 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“I don’t see a bit of use in any of it,” said 
Prue. “We were just plain silly! We know 
now we couldn’t raise enough to keep the house, 
so what’s the use of doing a little?” 

“Maybe they’ll need money till Mr. Haw- 
thorne gets well started in business,” said Isabel, 
with a sense of delicacy upon her in alluding to 
Mark’s family affairs before him. 

Poppy was not wasting time. She had taken 
a hoe out with her and was digging radishes so 
recklessly that she cut many of them, but she 
said she “didn’t care; there were tons too many 
of ’em.” 

Then she picked peas, tearing down the vines 
to get them, and had her basket filled in an amaz- 
ingly short time. Prue selected tender lettuce 
heads with care ; Mark gathered a bushel basket- 
ful of crisply tender wax beans, and Isabel gath- 
ered quantities of sweet peas, mignonette, alys- 
sum, which, piled on a tray, filled the air with 
fragrance. 

“It seems ’s if we ought to make a good busi- 
ness. Now, you watch me curry!” said Poppy. 

Without the least fear, nor reason for fear, for 
the tall horse knew and loved her, Poppy went 
into Hurrah’s stall and began to curry him, “hiss- 
ing through her teeth” in approved hostler fash- 
ion. 


[ 194 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

Poppy could reach only Hurrah’s shoulders 
and chest and legs, so the currying left a good 
deal of him undone, but she rubbed and hissed 
and got warm and dusty over all that she could 
reach of her comrade, and suddenly threw her 
currycomb from her and burst into tempestuous 
tears. 

“Oh, oh, oh! When you think I can’t keep on 
doing it!” she screamed. 

Isabel vainly tried to soothe her, privately 
thinking that it was not a good reason for crying 
that one could not curry a horse, however dear. 

There was an early and most exciting start in 
the morning of the remarkable expedition. First, 
the blue wagon, boxes in its body, rattling with 
bottles of sorts and sizes ; on its high seat the jolly 
Burkes, both red in the face and full of laughter. 
And on a blanket, thrown over an empty box, 
set bottom-side-up, Mark, carrying a fantastic 
flag which he had hastily made after he had gone 
to his room the night before. It was a square of 
flaming scarlet, ornamented with pasted designs 
in white. Dangling from the two corners which 
were not attached to its pole hung a small bottle 
to announce to the world the business upon which 
this wagon rolled through it. 

Behind the wagon came the buckboard drawn 
by tall Hurrah, all sorts of bundles lashed on its 

• [ 195 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


floor; on its seat three little girls, cleaner than 
they would long be, seated so low, driving 
through dusty roads ; the smallest, with her flam- 
ing hair almost as conspicuous as Mark’s red flag 
on the big wagon, holding the lines, her brow 
knit, her lips pursed, her eyes intent, exactly as 
if Hurrah would be likely to do anything but fol- 
low his leader. 

“Good-by, and we’ll be back the day after to- 
morrow, ma’ams,” said Mr. Burke to Mrs. Haw- 
thorne and Mrs. Lindsay and Mrs. Wayne, who 
had come up to see the start. 

“Oh, bring them home safe, Mr. Burke!” cried 
Mrs. Lindsay, her heart suddenly sinking as she 
wondered at herself for consenting to let her one 
ewe lamb go on this fantastic excursion. 

“Sure, ma’am, if I was dead myself I’d look 
after them, that anxious am I to bring them back 
safe!” replied Mr. Thomas Burke, giving his 
horse the signal to start as he waved his hat in 
the air and grinned broadly over his shoulder. 

“You may as well do your selling in Trout 
Brook, to which w T e’re coming shortly,” sug- 
gested Mr. Burke. “It’s a summer cottagers’ 
paradise, so ’tis, an’ they’ll buy fresh vegetables 
like crazy. An’ same with Isabel’s flowers.” 

Mr. Burke proved a true prophet. At Trout 
Brook people were so tired of the lack of events 
[ 196 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

in the quiet place where they had come for rest 
that they were eager to buy. 

String beans and Poppy’s peas went in a trice* 
Isabel’s flowers were in such demand for the 
adornment of living rooms and dining tables that 
she was sold out in a few minutes, and hardly 
knew how to meet the rush of trade. 

Lettuce was less desired, because, being so 
easily raised, some of the cottagers had planted it 
in their gardens. But most of that sold, too, and 
when the big and the little equipages and drivers 
started on there were no vegetables nor flowers 
left on the buckboard, only a little lettuce which 
Isa said would come in beautifully with their own 
lunch. Mark was made the cashier; he buttoned 
nearly sixteen dollars into his jacket pocket, the 
result of the children’s garden products. 

They went off in a gay mood, trying not to 
laugh, because they heard a lady say as they 
started away, a lady who had evidently spent 
years abroad and wanted it known: 

“What an extraordinary country America is! 
Really, do you know, those children appeared 
quite refined and intelligent! Not in the least 
like hucksters’ children!” 

“Some of us ought to be refined, and some of 
us intelligent. No fair any one being the whole 

[ 197 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


show!” muttered Mark softly. “Which do you 
choose to be, Poppy?” 

“Don’t know what you mean. Don’t bother 
me; I’m driving,” said Poppy. 

Mark had come over to ride on the buckboard 
with the other children, now that it was emptied 
of the vegetables. 

“Here’s a watering place,” called Mr. Burke, 
putting his hand on the back of his seat and 
swinging half around to the children behind him. 

“This is the brook that the village is named 
after. We’ve got to stop an’ let both horses 
drink. Drive ahead, Poppy, an’ I’ll let down 
Hurrah’s check.” 

He prepared to dismount, but Mark called to 
him that he could and would let down Hurrah’s 
check rein, and the big wagon drew to one side 
of the road to let the buckboard go by. 

Hurrah drank long and blissfully, knee deep 
in the middle of the brook, sucking up water and 
blowing it out, sniffing it into his dusty nostrils 
after he had had enough to drink. 

“My, but it looks good! Makes you feel cool 
to watch him,” said Mark, reluctantly crawling 
out on the shaft to pull up Hurrah’s head and 
fasten the check rein again, the other horse whin- 
nying and pawing, impatient for his turn. 

The buckboard came up safely on the opposite 
[ 198 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

bank of the watering place, going right through 
the brook; Isabel and Prue were nervous over 
the feat, but Hurrah knew his duty and did it. 

“Well, he may not be so awfully young, nor 
fancy, but it’s pretty nice to know you can trust 
Hurrah,” said Isabel emphatically. 

But, alas, horseflesh, like human nature, is 
likely to have some weakness that may make it 
break its record of sober good behavior ! 

Hurrah feared no automobile, not the biggest 
truck; locomotives, whole trains, were to him 
nothing to look at. But paper blowing around 
his feet was one thing that he could not endure. 
This the children had not yet found out, yet if 
they had known it they could hardly have helped 
what happened. 

A large sheet of paper, which had got detached 
from a billboard, advertising an auction that had 
been held the previous spring, came rollicking 
down the road, and fluttered and flourished be- 
tween Hurrah’s forelegs, and rustled noisily 
against his hind ones. 

Hurrah drew himself together with a snort ; all 
his insulted legs seemed to be bunched for an in- 
stant. Then he plunged, and ran down the road 
at a speed no one could have imagined he could 
have struck, the buckboard, and the children hold- 
ing to it, bounding and curving behind him, 

[ 199 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Poppy still holding the reins, but only at the 
buckle, screaming at the top of her voice and 
powerless to check Hurrah. 

Mr. Burke was still standing beside his horse 
in the stream. He could not go after the flying 
Hurrah for a moment ; if he had been able to, he 
could not have hoped, with his lumbering wagon, 
to catch Hurrah and the light buckboard. 

“Oh, angels in heaven, go after that horse!” 
Thomas Burke groaned. “Oh, it’s killed entirely 
they’ll be! However will I face their mothers! 
Oh, sweet guardian angels, take care of them.” 

Mrs. Burke was clambering down backward 
from the wagon, not aware that she was coming 
down into the brook. 

“What’ll you be doin’, Ellen Burke? Do you 
think you can catch ’em walkin’?” demanded her 
husband. 

“I’m no angel, but I’m going after that mad 
horse to see what I can do for them children when 
I come up to where they’ll be lyin’, alive or dead,” 
said Mrs. Burke, pale and resolute. 

“Well, well, I’m goin’ to drive after ’em, ain’t 
I? Stay where ye are, me poor woman, an’ I’ll 
make Cork go his best after the track of ’em,” 
said Mr. Burke. 

Cork, the big Burke horse, was urged forward 
and did his best, but Hurrah had a start, a light 
[ 200 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

load, and was frightened, so he went far beyond 
the Burkes’ power to help. 

None of the children jumped. Mark bade 
them hold on for their lives and not try to jump 
out of the buckboard. 

“It’s low, if we do tip over, and we’ll take 
the chance of Hurrah’s stopping soon,” he said, 
keeping his presence of mind and trying to speak 
courage to the cowering little girls. 

Prue sat with her head bent, her eyes closed, 
holding to the seat. Isabel, deadly white, held 
herself fast by one hand; the other grasped 
Poppy, whom Mark also held, and who was so 
frightened that she could not understand any- 
thing said to her, nor in any way help the situa- 
tion; she would have thrown herself out if Isa 
and Mark had not clutched her tight. 

Suddenly, while Hurrah was still in full flight, 
there sprang out of the thick growth on the side 
of the road a figure that seized Hurrah’s bridle. 

So suddenly it happened that the horse was 
flung back on his haunches; he threw back his 
head so high that the man, a tiny creature, was 
swung off his feet. But he held on pluckily, and 
Hurrah stopped. The children were saved. 

After a moment, in which all that they could 
understand was that they were not killed, not 

[ 201 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


harmed, and were not going to be, they looked at 
the one to whom they owed their escape. 

It was the queer little man whom they had seen 
in the woods! There was no mistaking his long 
nose, his thin, dark face, his crooked little body. 

“Oh, how do you do?” gasped Prue. 

In spite of the fact that Isabel was crying 
quietly, Poppy noisily, from the nervous relief 
of being saved, the others giggled at this remark 
from Prue. 

“I’m pretty well,” said the queer little man in 
a thin, high, queer little voice that seemed, when 
you heard it, to be the only voice that could come 
out of that body. 

“I don’t think you’d oughter drive such a met- 
tlesome horse. It’s dang’rous to be run away 
with — for little girls like you,” he said. 

Mark and Isabel giggled again, but Poppy, 
drying her eyes with a swift stroke of the back 
of her hand across them, cried indignantly^ 

“He ain’t meddlesome. He never meddles. 
That. old paper meddled with him and scared 
him. He never run away before, and it’s be- 
cause a big paper went and flew all through his 
legs!” 

“That’ll do it, that’ll do it! That’ll scare ’em 
when trains a-rushin’ won’t,” said the little man, 
not in the least tempted to laugh. 

[ 202 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“Well, I’m kinder glad I happened to be here 
to keep you from getting killed. I think most 
likely your folks’d been awful upset if you’d been 
killed.” 

“They wouldn’t have liked it,” Mark admitted 
without a smile. “We’re grateful to you. We’re 
so grateful that we don’t know how to say it! 
What can any one say for thanks when it’s like 
this?” 

Mark jumped over the buckboard wheel and 
Went up to the little man with his hand out; his 
beautiful eyes, which were the color of an oak 
leaf in autumn, shone out through tears and his 
voice shook. 

“Goodness me, ’twan’t anything; I happened 
to be here,” said the little man. “You’re entirely 
welcome.” 

“Please tell me your name,” said Mark. “Isa- 
bel, Prue, Poppy, come; aren’t you going to 
thank him?” 

“You’re a wonderful sweet, pretty child,” said 
the little man to Isabel. “My name is Ichabod 
Lemuel Rudd. You’re perfectly welcome, ’s I 
said. I’d like to hear how you’re called, if ’tisn’t 
impudence.” 

“Well, considering what you’ve done, I 
wouldn’t call it that,” said Mark. “Mr. Rudd, 
this is Prudence Wayne. This is Poppy Meiggs. 

[ 203 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

This is Isabel Lindsay. I am Mark Haw- 
thorne.” 

“What!” fairly shouted the little man. “Not 
Gilbert Hawthorne’s boy? How’d you come 
here? Gilbert’s boy! And I caught that horse! 
Well, well!” 

He stood staring at Mark, forgetting the little 
girls completely, excitement in his eyes and man- 
ner. 

“Do you know my father?” asked Mark. 
“Come home with us and let him thank you. 
There’s a big wagon coming along soon ; we were 
driving behind it, in the man’s care. You can 
ride with him. Come home with us and see my 
father.” 

“No, no, no! Maybe I’ll see him some day be- 
fore long; maybe not. I can’t seem to get it 
right in my mind. Jiminy cats, it’s the bottle 
man !” Ichabod Rudd cried, the first to catch sight 
of the Burkes tearing, in a cloud of dust, toward 
them. “Good-by, Gilbert Hawthorne’s boy !” 

Turning, the queer little man plunged into the 
thick undergrowth, out of which he had sprung 
to save the children, and instantly disappeared. 


[ 204 ] 


CHAPTER XIV 


UNDER THE STARS 

M R. BURKE’S wagon came rattling down 
the road, its load of bottles jumping 
around in their boxes in a way that threatened 
their existence as bottles. 

“Whoa, there!” shouted Mr. Burke when he 
espied the children standing at the side of the 
road. He pulled in his horse so suddenly that 
he threw the reliable beast back on his haunches. 

“Well, thank the Lord, you’re all right!” cried 
Mrs. Burke, clambering down from the wagon 
backward in her usual fashion. Her face was 
deadly pale. “You are all right, ain’t you?” she 
added. 

“All right; every one of us!” Mark called 
back. 

“Well, by cricky, that was goin’ some!” said 
Mr. Burke. 

“It was stopping some!” cried Mark, letting 
Mr. Burke take his hand, which he had come 
down out of the wagon to do. But Mark was too 

[ 205 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


much absorbed in the fact of their rescue by the 
queer little man to be interested in the danger 
they had escaped. 

“Say, Mr. Burke, who do you suppose caught 
Hurrah?” he said. 

“Yes, who’d you s’pose? Who’d you s’pose?” 
echoed Poppy, dancing about like a firefly. 
“That man! The queer little man! And we 
know his name; it’s Kickabout! Did you ever!” 

Poppy was in such haste to tell all the news 
herself that her tongue tripped over her words 
and she stammered. 

“Oh, Poppy, it is not! It’s Ichabod!” Prue 
said disgustedly. “He said Ichabod Lemuel 
Rudd. Kickabout ! Whoever heard such a 
name !” 

“No, nor the other one, the right one,” said 
Poppy. “Ain’t Hurrah just fine? I tell you, 
he can go like a colt!” 

Poppy spoke with great enthusiasm thrown 
into her voice, because she felt considerable fear 
of Mr. Burke’s disapproving of Hurrah’s run- 
ning away. 

Mr. Burke shook his head, frowning. 

“Well, I’m not so sure about the performance 
bein’ fine! It depends on how you look at it. 
There’s a lot of people wouldn’t call a horse that 
[ 206 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

ran away so killin’ fine for a little girl to drive,” 
he said. 

“Oh, but it was paper! There’s hardly ever 
handbills blowing around in the read. You don’t 
see ’em!” Poppy swept the road in both direc- 
tions with a wide gesture of her right arm, mean- 
ing to prove that handbills were not to be seen. 
“It came along just flopping, and it flopped right 
in under Hurrah’s legs. You couldn’t blame him 
for getting nervous. I think it’s great the way he 
ran, and folks saying he’s old!” 

“If you want a good jounce it’s the old horse 
you think you know’ll be givin’ it to you,” said 
Mr. Burke, again shaking his head dubiously. 
“I’ll be watchin’ out for handbills cavortin’ along 
after this, for I suppose you’ll have to drive 
back, seein’ as none of you, nor my wife no more, 
could drive the wagon. Whatever did you do 
with your little friend, wid the long nose on him, 
Mark? There’s no sign of him.” 

“He dropped down through the undergrowth 
and took to his heels like a rabbit when he saw 
you coming. He said, ‘Oh, it’s the bottle man!’ 
and off he went,” said Mark. “I was asking him 
to come to see my father; he seemed half to want 
to, but instead he melted off quicker than an 
icicle.” 

“Which is about the shape an’ size of him! 

[ 207 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Maybe he was afraid the bottle man would put 
him in one of them flat, thin bottles, an’ be off 
to set the black little wisp of a man he is on the 
shelf, mistakin’ him for ink! It is a queer one he 
is, whatever’s the matter wid him!” laughed Mr. 
Burke. 

“Now, I’m thinkin’ that we’ll make a camp for 
the night, for I promised ye we’d sleep out, 
though we might push on an’ find a place under 
cover, did you vote for it.” 

“We vote to sleep out!” cried Isabel, who had 
been so badly frightened by the runaway that 
she now spoke for the first time. 

“Oh, mercy, yes; all the nights,” said Poppy 
decidedly. 

“Well, I’d not wonder if this was the one 
night we were gone. I’m thinkin’ I’ll be turnin’ 
back to-morrow an’ make the rest of the trip 
the next time,” said Mr. Burke, not caring to 
explain to Poppy that Hurrah’s running had 
brought his wife and himself to this decision as 
they gave chase to the buckboard with hearts 
frozen with fear. 

“Let us once get them, and no great harm 
done, and it’s back we’ll go with those children 
to-morrow, Thomas Burke, and take no risk of 
another scare,” Mrs. Burke had said, as she and 
[ 208 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

her husband tore down the road in pursuit of 
Hurrah amid the rattling bottles. 

“We should be willing to stay longer,” said 
Poppy, most politely. 

“Now, that’s kind of you!” Mr. Burke spoke 
with extreme heartiness, but though she looked 
at him quickly, Poppy’s sharp eyes could not 
discover that he was making fun of her. “All the 
same, I’d forgotten to remember, but now I’m 
remembering not to forget, that I must go back 
to Greenacres to-morrow an’ take in the coun- 
try beyond another time. I’d like the opinion of 
the sailors on the good ship Buckboard as to the 
best place to anchor for the night.” 

“Take soundings, Captain,” said Mark, re- 
sponding in kind to Mr. Burke’s fooling, offer- 
ing him a piece of ribbon that had been around 
a candy box, hardly long enough to “take sound- 
ings” in a bath tub. 

Mr. Burke tied the horses to trees and started 
out, followed by the four children. 

“I’ll stop where I am,” Mrs. Burke announced, 
making herself comfortable in the wagon. “I’m 
that tired with the fright and holding myself fast 
when we walloped along, chasing you young ones, 
that sittin’ down looks good to me. When you’ve 
found the place to sleep you’ll be back here, any- 

[ 209 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


ways, to get the things there’s here, and I may as 
well be one of ’em.” 

It was not necessary to go far to find a camp- 
ing place that could not have been bettered. Isa- 
bel was right when she said it was a pity not to 
use it for more than one night, so perfect it was. 

They came upon a glade surrounded by trees, 
reached by a sloping clearing, so that there would 
be no difficulty in bringing the horses to it. A 
little spring was just beyond, making its pres- 
ence known by a thread of sound as it trickled 
down over rocks on its way to the river that 
flowed on to the outskirts of Greenacres. It was 
such a sweet, refreshingly restful little sound, 
so full of hints of flowers watered by the spring, 
of far-off, hidden places where the stream rose, 
such a gentle lullaby to which to sleep, that Mr. 
Burke said it was a shame not to stay awake to 
think how nice it was to sleep by, and he couldn’t 
see why Isabel and Mark laughed. 

“Well, unless we marched on to Eden, an’ 
I’m not clear where we’d be findin’ it, since 
Adam an’ Eve destroyed the map of the road 
there, we’d never come upon another such spot to 
spend the night, so it’s back Mark an’ I go to 
bring the chariot an’ band wagon of this circus, 
an’ the star performer, who is Mrs. Thomas 
Burke, by the same token!” announced Mr. 

[ 210 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

Burke, leading the way again to whence they 
had started out. 

“Put a fire in the range, Poppy, an’ cut the 
fruit cake, while Isabel an’ Prue lays the dam- 
ask an’ the silver, for we’ll have supper once we 
get here,” Mr. Burke turned back to say. 

Neither the fire, nor the range to hold it, nor 
silver, nor damask were to be seen when the 
Burkes came back with Mark, bringing horses 
and belongings. But the little girls had laid the 
largest leaves which they could find for plates 
in a circle on the grass, and Isabel had cleverly 
bound twigs into an approach to the shape of a 
vase and had put them in the center of the circle, 
which represented the table, so that it really 
might be imagined to be a table, if one brought 
to it a respectable amount of imagination. 

There were wonderful things to eat — or was 
it that the shadowy, poetic spot transformed 
everything with its charm? 

Bread and butter is every-day enough to us 
lucky people who have not been taught what it 
is to lack it, yet this white bread, with its golden- 
brown crust — “the color of Mark’s eyes,” Prue 
said, unexpectedly observant — the yellow, yellow 
butter, fragrant of the grass and clover which 
had gone to make its cream, seemed raised above 
bread and butter known in houses, and to be a sort 

[ 211 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


of fairy food. And there were slices of beef as 
thin as leaves, and of ham, all rosy and white; 
and jams and jellies in glasses — surely no jam 
and jelly had ever looked like this at home ! And 
cake ! Golden, with white icing, as if a peach had 
stayed out too late on its tree and got caught in 
the first light snow of November. There was 
white cake with a brown coating in layers and on 
top, that proved, when bitten into, to be not ordi- 
nary chocolate icing, but fudge. It was fudge 
delicious enough to make any one’s very palate 
sing, all crumbly, yet smooth and soft, chocolatey, 
yet buttery — the sort of fudge that every fudge- 
maker knows comes by luck in boiling and beat- 
ing, and may or may not ever be got a second 
time! 

And there were big, bulging blackberries, full 
of juice and sweetness, but not of seeds, all ready 
to go to pieces and yield up their perfect flavor 
when any one pressed them, with a delighted 
tongue, up against the roof of a mouth that 
would surely promptly open to get another such 
berry ! And, last of all, there was lemonade, kept 
cool in stone jugs, because thermos bottles, not 
even all that the Hawthornes and Waynes and 
Lindsays owned, would not hold enough. 

“Some supper!” said Poppy, or meant to. 

What she really said was, “Thum thupper!” a 

[ 212 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

thick lisp, because of too large a mouthful of 
fudge cake and the fudge clogging her tongue. 

“If you asked me,” said Mark solemnly, “I’d 
say it wasn’t a supper, but a banquet.” 

“Does it make it a banquet to eat too much?” 
asked Prue. “Because, if it does, it is; I have 
eaten too much, a great deal too much, and I’m so 
uncomfortable that I love it — to feel so tight! 
Because I never, nevee in all my life, ate such 
good things!” 

“Why not sit up all night?” suggested Isabel, 
her eyes fixed on the afterglow of the sunset seen 
through the trees, its soft colors still more soft- 
ened by the half-veiling green, and upon the few 
stars beginning to appear in the east, opposite 
the purpling pinks of the west. 

“We all turn in at nine,” said Mr. Burke, con- 
sulting his able-bodied, open-faced watch. “It’s 
now eight o’clock an’ fifteen minutes. Mark my 
words, by nine there won’t be one of you hardly 
able to see where you’re turnin’ in, that sleepy 
will you be! I’m goin’ — with Mark’s help — to 
turn the buckboard over an’ let the three little 
girls have plenty blankets an’ sleep under it; 
’twill make a kind of roof over ’em for keepin* 
off dampness. The big wagon’s not altogether 
comfortable, but Mark’ll make out in it, along 
wid us. You’re not so fussy, sleepin’ out, as you 

[ 213 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

do be in your homes, when you complain if there’s 
a small wrinkle in the sheet under you! How’d 
it be to be givin’ us a small concert till bedtime — 
if there’s enough breath in you after that sup- 
per? Some nice songs, an’ then hymns, last of 
all, for a help to night prayers an’ safe sleepin’?” 

The children all sang well, all but Prue, whose 
ear was not wholly reliable. Isabel was decidedly 
musical; she was alive to beauty in every form, 
and her voice was sweet and true. Mark had a 
rarely lovely voice, a pure, high boy soprano that 
was a delight, but Poppy, Poppy with her plain 
little face, her red hair and freckles, had the gift 
of a voice so exquisite that no one could think 
of her as a child while she was singing; she be- 
came only a voice to be listened to with the same 
sort of joy felt when the little brown thrasher 
sings unseen on a tree near by. She seemed only 
a song so lovely that it was impossible to consider 
the body from which it sprang. 

“All right,” said Poppy, at once assenting to 
Mr. Burke’s suggestion. 

Without waiting for any one else, she at once 
began to sing “Loch Lomond,” that haunting, 
sweet, pathetic song, filled with patient sorrow 
for a joy that is done. 

The others joined in, Isabel singing softly her 
[ 214 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

true little alto, keeping it down because she loved 
to listen to Poppy and Mark. 

They sang and sang “Annie Laurie,” “Bonny 
Charley,” “Sweet Afton,” “Bonny Doon,” for 
they all loved the Scotch songs best, and Isabel 
Lindsay, as her name showed, had a right to, if 
the blood of her Highland forebears was truly 
in her. 

“Well, now, some Irish ones, the best of all!” 
hinted Mr. Burke, and he started them with “Be- 
lieve Me If All Those Endearing Young 
Charms,” which they all knew. He was half 
offended that they knew few others, but Mark 
saved his feelings by singing “Kathleen Mavour- 
neen” as it should be sung, and making him cry 
a little without being ashamed that they all 
knew it. 

By this time there were many stars in the east 
and south. Cassopeia’s Chair and Andromeda 
and Perseus were up, as well as the Great Bear, 
in the north, though only Isabel and Mark knew 
them all. Isabel’s mother had taught them to 
her in the twilight talks they always had, and 
which Isabel was missing that night, and Mark 
had learned them from his father when he was a 
tiny lad, out under the stars, camping with his 
wonderful daddy. 

“Now the hymns,” said Mr. Burke, once more 

[ 215 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


looking at his watch. “An’, moreover, there’s 
not time for half I’d like of them, if we keep to 
the hour.” 

“Let us not keep to the hour, dear Mr. Burke; 
let us keep to the singing,” whispered Isabel, put- 
ting her hand on his arm. 

“I’ll not believe you’re of Scotch descent at all; 
it’s Irish your ancestors were, acushla!” declared 
Mr. Burke, looking fondly down on her. No one 
could ever resist Isabel ; her sweetness was of the 
sort that penetrates and softens hearts. 

So they did not “keep to the hour,” but sang 
their hymns until Prue fell asleep and Mark was 
drowsy. Isabel could have sung on all night, and 
Poppy grew more like an electric spark the later 
the evening wore on. 

Mr. Burke and his wife tipped over the buck- 
board ; Mark tried to help, but he was too sleepy 
to be of much use. Isa thought that it looked 
unpleasantly queer, propped up with its seat be- 
neath and its wheels in the air, and Prue voiced 
her, feeling. 

“I hate it; it’s scarey for night, wouldn’t mat- 
ter in daytime,” she said. 

“We can’t see it when we’re asleep under it,” 
said Isa, careful not to show that she agreed. “It 
will be like a nice, funny little house.” 

Leafy branches made a good mattress, a new 

[ 216 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

horse blanket that had never been used was so 
heavy that the cool hours after midnight would 
not chill the three little girls, snuggled up to- 
gether under the buckboard, with the big brown 
and red plaid blanket spread over them. 

Mark said good night and crawled into his 
own shelter in the big wagon the moment the 
buckboard was established upside down. 

“Goodness, but I’m sleepy!” he said, yawning 
and staggering as he walked off. 

Nobody was to undress. Prue’s orderly soul 
was further afflicted by lying down to sleep, even 
on a wild wood bed of boughs, with all her clothes 
on. 

“Isn’t it queer?” she whispered, welcoming 
with both arms Isa, who was to sleep in the mid- 
dle, because both Prue and Poppy wanted to be 
next to her. 

It was decidedly queer, but it really was ex- 
ceedingly nice! 

The night seemed deep and vast out here un- 
der the stars, surrounded by its complete silence. 
The little sounds of earth went on, the children 
discovered after the first few minutes, when they 
had thought the stillness unbroken. Leaves 
rustled steadily; sometimes a twig snapped; lit- 
tle birds stirred and chirped softly, sweetly; the 
crickets and other insects played a ceaseless sym- 

[ 217 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


phony of the night with their legs drawn over 
their wings, or their wings whirring in the air. 
Yet, with all these many soft sounds of earth, 
the stillness of the night seemed somehow to 
brood over them and remain unbroken. Isabel 
and Poppy had been sure that they should not go 
to sleep all night. It was a pity that going off 
tight asleep in a few minutes kept them from 
knowing and being very much surprised that they 
were not awake one-half hour! 

Isabel woke with a great start. She did not 
know how long she had been asleep, but it seemed 
to her a long time, though it still was dark. 
Something had touched her face, something damp 
and cold ! 

Poppy was gone; Isabel put out her hand, 
groping for her, though the space in which they 
lay was so small that she could not have missed 
Poppy if she had been there. Poppy was gone! 
Prue was there, asleep. Isabel grasped her and 
spoke her name close to her ear. 

‘True, Prue, something is here! Poppy’s 
gone!” she said. 

“Oh, are you awake! I’m dying!” said Poppy 
hoarsely from somewhere near in the darkness. 

“Oh, did you feel it, too?” whispered Isabel, 
putting out her hand and catching Poppy’s arm 
[ 218 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

as she came, crawling and shaking, toward the 
bed. 

“It got — it got up on — on — me,” Poppy man- 
aged to gasp. 

With that, Isabel shrieked horribly and dove 
under the blanket, and Prue and Poppy ably sec- 
onded her screams. 

“Mr. Burke! Mr. Burke! Mrs. Burke! 
Mark!” the three little girls screamed. 

“Well, what in the name of Mike ” said 

Mr. Burke, coming toward them. 

He turned a flashlight in upon the terror- 
stricken three and burst out laughing. 

“Well, wherever did you get Bunkie? An’ 
why do you scare the poor little beast’s hide off of 
him?” Mr. Burke inquired. 

“Bunkie!” shouted the three little girls in one 
breath, and threw off the blanket to sit up and 
see if it possibly could be Bunkie. 

It certainly was Bunkie, standing afar, wist- 
fully wagging his tail, puzzled to be received so 
unkindly when he had followed the trail of his 
beloveds’ journey, wearily and patiently, and was 
so delighted to have overtaken them, so sure that 
Isa would be as glad to see him as she always 
was, as he was to see her. But Poppy and she 
had both jumped up when his nose touched their 
cheeks, and they had thrown him off the bed 

[ 219 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


where he had joyously leaped to say that he had 
come up with them at last, shrieking as if he were 
a rat! 

Poor Bunkie, low in his mind, tired and long- 
ing, stood wagging his tail and eyeing his mis- 
tress wistfully. 

“Oh, Bunkie, Bunkie, my dearest!” cried Isa- 
bel, holding out her arms. 

This was as it should be ! With a whine of hap- 
piness, Bunkie sprang into these arms and curled 
down between Isa and Prue to finish the night. 


[ 220 ] 


CHAPTER XV 


A CLEAR DAY 

M ARK came singing over to the buckboard 
in the morning. He sang a tune of his 
own, but the words were Tweedledee’s. 

“ ‘Oh, Oysters,’ said the Carpenter, 

‘You’ve had a pleasant runt 
Shall we be trotting home again? 

But answer came there none — 

And this was scarcely odd, because 
They’d eaten every one.’ 

You aren’t eaten, are you? I sure thought 
you were going to be last night! My goodness 
gracious, but you did yell! And all about 
Bunkie!” he cried. 

“Bunkie feels as awful as a wild animal when 
you don’t see him, and his nose’s just as cold!” 
Poppy answered, and her manner was far colder 
than poor Bunkie’s nose could have been. “Any- 

[2211 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

how, I just got right out; I didn’t yell, nor any- 
thing.” 

“Well, then, as long as you aren’t eaten you’ll 
be trotting home again?” Mark returned to the 
idea of his song. “Mr. Burke told me to tell 
you that it was going to be ‘a day right off the 
griddle’ — that’s exactly what he said — and that 
he wanted to start back early. So you get ready 
for breakfast — the only thing you’ve got to do 
when you don’t undress is to wash your face and 
hands in the spring over there — and we’ll soon 
break camp.” 

Mark ran back to make himself useful in the 
preparation of breakfast, taking out the food that 
they had brought with them, carrying sticks for 
the fire to boil the coffee which Mrs. Burke, who 
was an experienced camper, was to make for 
herself and her husband; the children were to 
drink the water from the nearby spring, cold and 
delicious as only spring water can be. 

“Now, pack up; every one of us is to get at 
it, an’ we’ll be off for Greenacres in good time. 
It’ll be one of the days when you’ve got to take 
a step-ladder to read the thermometer, the mer- 
cury’s going that high ! We’ll get as far’s we can 
before it is too uppish, an’ let the horses have a 
noontide rest, in a shady place, for a good bit. 
Cork is going to want it, an’ Hurrah’ll have not 
[ 222 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

a word against it,” said Mr. Burke, setting an 
example by gathering up his cup and saucer and 
throwing his paper plate on the fire. 

“Cork! Is that your horse’s name? I don’t 
think I ever heard his name before, Mr. Burke,” 
cried Isabel, laughing. “How funny!” 

“I’d like to know what’s funny about it?” said 
Mr. Burke. “My father come from County 
Cork, for one thing. An’ for another, ain’t I the 
bottle man? An’ what goes better with a bottle 
than a cork, would ye be tellin’ me?” 

“Yes, but you pull corks, and this Cork pulls 
you !” laughed Isabel. 

“Sure ; isn’t turn about fair play? He’s payin’ 
the debts of his namesakes! Now, then, let’s set 
Cork to pullin’ us as soon’s may be, for in no 
time we’ll feel like St. Lawrence when they 
roasted him over the fire, barrin’ his sanctity,” 
said Mr. Burke, and he pushed Poppy before him 
a few steps in the direction of the buckboard to 
emphasize his wish. 

There was little to do to get this small gypsying 
party started. In twenty minutes they were go- 
ing along the road at a good pace, the rested 
horses not unwilling to trot, especially as they 
were headed homeward. 

All four children were on the buckboard this 
time, the wagon ahead. 


[ 223 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“I’ll go first,” said Mr. Burke, “an* if I see 
any poster, or the like, gambolin’ along the road, 
I’ll meet it first an’ politely hold it up, askin’ it 
to let me roll it up an’ take it in, as the fine gen- 
tleman haulin’ the equipage in the rear of me 
wagon is that nervous he’d never be able to stand 
the sight of it.” 

Following this arrangement, therefore, Hur- 
rah came trotting along behind Cork, in the big 
wagon, holding his head up and showing no sense 
of disgrace at his scandalous behavior when he 
was going in the opposite direction the day be- 
fore. 

The children chattered happily, but quietly; 
the country road was soothing, lined with beauty 
on either hand. Not a bird escaped Mark’s 
trained eye, taught as he had been by his father 
to know them and to imitate their notes. Some- 
times he would lay his hand over Poppy’s, hold- 
ing the lines, and stop Hurrah while he whistled 
to some small feathered acquaintance he spied on 
a shrub. The bird would answer the note, mis- 
taking it for the call of one of his nearer kin 
than this brown boy who, nevertheless, always 
seemed to Isabel and Prue near kindred to the 
birds. 

So they jogged on pleasantly homeward, with 
a long nooning, as Mr. Burke had planned. The 
[ 224 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

day grew almost unbearably hot as the sun 
mounted, but the road was shady, so the heat was 
somewhat softened, though there was little air 
under the trees. Isabel and Prue tipped over 
against each other and fell asleep. Poppy was 
wide awake, giving her whole mind to driving, 
and Mark waked with her, giving his whole mind 
— though Poppy did not know it — to seeing that 
nothing went wrong because she drove. 

Isabel sat up and rubbed her eyes. 

“Mercy, my neck is cracked! It’s all stiff 
holding my head on one side!” she said. 

“What do you think of me?” demanded Prue, 
also waking. “My shoulder is more than 
cracked ; it’s ruined, holding your head ! Where 
are we; near home, Mark?” 

“Not so far from it,” said Mark. “Ought to 
be about an hour more getting there.” 

“I’ve been thinking ” began Isabel. 

“Never would have guessed it! Any one would 
have guessed you were asleep,” interrupted 
Mark. 

“Jack-in-the-Box, go down into your box and 
pull the lid down; you’re impertinent, sir!” 

Isabel pretended to be angry. “I thought be- 
fore I went to sleep, and while I was waking up ; 
kind of a sleep sandwich, with thinking between! 
And I was thinking that something must happen 

[ 225 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


to keep you from going away, Mark. It just 
plain must!” 

“I don’t see what can,” Mark began, but got 
no farther. 

“I say don’t talk about it,” Prue said firmly. 
“We came to gypsy, and have a good time, and 
I say let’s have it to the end. It’s hot enough, 
too! Isa, will you take Bunkie a while? I’ve 
held him all this time, and he’s just like a chest- 
nut roaster; he’s burning right through my skirt, 
and cramping me besides! Take your ragged 
little dog and let me stretch.” 

“Little scalawag to follow us! But I’m glad 
he found us, as long as he came!” commented 
Isabel, relieving patient Prue of Bunkie’s 
warmth and weight. 

The subject of losing Mark was thus dropped 
for the time, and it was not long before the gyp- 
sies turned in at the gate of the Hawthorne house. 
They stirred Cork and Hurrah up to their best 
speed, drove up singing, “Marching Through 
Georgia,” which Poppy had said was “Hurrah’s 
national hymn,” because of the words of its 
chorus. 

Motherkins hastened out to meet them, but she 
looked pale and her eyes showed that they had 
lately been swollen with tears. 

There, on the piazza, stood trunks, three of 

[ 226 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

them, new ones, with their lids set back against 
the wall, as if waiting to be filled ! 

Mark laid a hand on the buckboard wheel and 
vaulted it to run up the steps and seize his tiny 
grandmother, who always seemed too young and 
too small for that title, around the waist and kiss 
her hard. 

, “Motherkins, little wee Motherkins, what are 
these for?” he cried, pointing to the trunks. 

“Oh, Mark, dear, I can’t bear to have your 
pleasant trip end in grief! We did not look for 
you till to-morrow,” Motherkins said. 

“Hurrah got scared and ran away; it wasn’t 
safe to let Poppy drive further, so we came back,” 
Mark said, forgetting that Poppy was not to 
know why Mr. Burke had changed his plans, and 
not seeing the anger with which she heard him. 
“What do you mean by grief, Motherkins? 
What is wrong?” Mark asked, almost as if he 
were grown up. 

“Your father, dear, has found that he must 
leave here at once, since he is to go, or else lose 
the business opening which is too good to lose. 
So we are to go away from Greenacres within a 
few days. Oh, Isabel, Isabel, I know, and I’m 
so sorry, dear child ! But, remember, it is hard for 
us, too.” Gentle Motherkins patted Isabel’s head 
and smoothed her hair, as, with a cry, she threw 

[ 227 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 

herself into Motherkins’ arms and sobbed uncon- 
trolledly. 

There was a sad supper eaten in silence by 
Poppy and Mark at the Hawthorne house, by 
Isabel and Prue in their own homes. It did not 
seem possible that they had all been light-hearted 
and had set out pleasuring so short a time ago. 
As long as the Hawthornes were not to leave 
Greenacres until September the children could 
postpone grief at parting. But trunks all ready 
to receive their contents! The parting but a 
week distant ! Ah, there was no shaking off this 
horrible reality. 

“Mark will come to us summers, Isa, darling; 
I have that promise. We shall not lose him,” 
Mrs. Lindsay strove to console Isabel, whose head 
lay on her mother’s shoulder as they sat in the 
deep window seat spending “Isabel’s hour” to- 
gether at the close of this eventful day. 

“We shall not lose him, we shall keep friends, 
but, oh, mother, a friend on a telephone, or writ- 
ing letters, is not the same at all as a friend where 
you can touch him!” sighed Isabel, and Mrs. 
Lindsay could not answer. She knew better than 
Isabel could, with her longer experience, that 
separation is a wedge that often makes friends 
completely forget. 

Early in the morning Isabel and Prue met 

[ 228 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

Mark and Poppy by appointment at Chateau 
Branche. 

There had been a shower in the night which 
had refreshed the heated earth and put new 
beauty into every growing thing and had left 
them all shining with brilliance in the early morn- 
ing sunshine. 

Birds were singing everywhere, the birds which 
Mark could name and call. Flowers brightened 
the woods here and there; Mark knew them all. 
How everything was going to speak of Mark 
and emphasize his loss when he was gone! And 
Poppy! Funny, excitable, explosive, but honor- 
able, devoted, high-hearted little Poppy! Isabel 
and Prue felt that her plain face was almost 
beautiful when they realized that they were not 
long to see it. 

Mark sat whittling, whistling between his tight 
closed teeth. He was so miserable that he did 
not attempt to disguise it, nor to speak. For once 
Poppy was not talking. Pale under her many 
brown freckles, her lips drawn and drooping, she 
stared at Isa, trying to learn her face by heart to 
take away with her each detail of its sweetness. 

“Let’s go over to the Toy Shop,” said Prue. 

No one answered, but one after another they 
all slid down from Chateau Branche to follow 
Prue, knowing that she wanted to go there be- 

[ 229 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


cause it was the spot in the woods where she and 
Isa had found their Jack-in- the-Box. They went 
along single file, till Poppy stepped back and, 
without a word, put her arm around Isabel’s 
waist. 

The Toy Shop was a pleasant little glade; on 
one side of it was the hidden opening to the secret 
passage up to the Hawthorne house. As they 
came into the Top Shop now, there, just outside 
the bushes which concealed this opening, sat the 
queer little man whom now they knew as Ichabod 
Lemuel Rudd. 

“Jiminy cribs L Look who’s here!” cried 
Poppy, as Prue fairly shouted: 

“Ichabod Lemuel Rudd!” as if she had gone to 
school with him. 

“Good morning, young ladies,” said Ichabod, 
in his high falsetto voice. 

“And good morning to you, Gilbert Haw- 
thorne’s boy! Now, what I want to say is: Take 
me right on to your father, and do it quick, 
’cause I’ve got my mind on it, and cats can’t say 
how long it will stay set!” 

“All right; come on,” said Mark, taking this 
as part of the strange doings of recent days and 
not stopping to discuss why cats should be able 
to tell how long Ichabod’s mind would stay set. 

“That’s the ticket!” said Ichabod, in evident 
[ 230 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

relief. “If you knew what a time I’ve had! I’ve 
fairly hung around. Been down in that secret 
passage — I found it when I fell into it — and 
going up to the house, and then going back ” 

“Secret passage! You found the box of coins 
in there?” cried Mark. 

“Returned ’em, too, undisturbed. More’n 
could be said of me, these days,” said Ichabod, 
nodding hard. “Been skinning up outside the 
house, into a room where I judged you young- 
* sters played ” 

“What!” cried all four children together. 

“Sure!” said Ichabod. “Once I slept there. 
And yet I couldn’t make up my mind to tell what 
I’m going to tell to-day — provided you get me 
there quick enough. I tell you, Gilbert Haw- 
thorne’s boy, I’ve been that exercised in my mind, 
what with wanting to do one right, and wanting 

to do another right There, if we talk about 

it I may slip my cogs and not tell !” 

“Sure, you’ll tell!” said Mark, beginning to 
feel that there really must be something impor- 
tant behind all this. “And it was you came up 
into our Club Room ! And you slept there ? And 
you took out our cups ” 

“Not to steal ’em!” cried Ichabod quickly. 
“They’re safe. I needed ’em for tea, so I bor- 
rowed ’em, but I’ve got ’em for you.” 

[ 231 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“And we thought maybe it was Kathiel” said 
Prue, as one talking in her sleep. 

“Been troublous times. Trouble for your 
father, and in my mind! Oh, jiminy cats, are 
we there? Oh, I’d rather do a whole lot of worse 
things than tell!” cried Ichabod, as they came 
suddenly upon the house from the side entrance. 

“Daddy, daddy, come here, quick!” Mark 
called, as he ran ahead of the rest up the steps. 

But Mr. Hawthorne was out under the trees ; 
he came forward from the opposite side of the 
house from that around which the children 
emerged. 

“Oh, jiminy cats and jiminy kittens!” cried 
Ichabod Rudd. “As sure as death, ’tis you, Gil- 
bert Hawthorne!” 

“Well,” said Mr. Hawthorne, “it doesn’t seem 
to me strange that I should be myself.” 

“No, not put that way, but it’s strange to me 
to see you at last, when I’ve been backing and fill- 
ing about seeing you for dear knows how long! 
I’ve been hanging around here, climbing up out- 
side your house, getting into a room on that rear 
side. Been up to every sort of hanging around 
stunt! Once I asked a bottle dealer about you, 
but when I found he did know you I faded right 
out,” said Ichabod earnestly. “I guess I’ll fade 
now. Glad to have seen you, Mr. Gilbert.” He 
[ 232 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

turned as if to go rapidly away, but Mark caught 
him. 

“Not much!” he cried. “Whatever this thing 
is you’ve got to tell, tell it and get it over with, 
quick!” 

“Is there something you want to say to me? 
Shall we go inside? Where have I ever seen you? 
I have a sort of recollection of seeing you some- 
where,” said Mr. Hawthorne. 

“I don’t mind the kids,” said Ichabod. He 
began to speak quickly, as if he were in danger 
of not speaking, and he got his strange tale over 
with briefly. 

“You saw me once at Mr. Ditson’s house. J 
worked for him for years. He was the best 
friend to me I ever could have had. He liked 
me; I loved him. His son is putting up a job 
to get the money his father left you. He don’t 
need it; he has too much. He near killed his 
father, sorrowing over him. I got the proof it’s 
a put-up job. I can prove the money’s yours. I 
hated to speak because, after all, Maurice is a 
Ditson. But he near killed his father, and his 
father wanted you to have the money. I always 
tried to do what my dear old employer wanted 
done; alive or dead, I’ve always tried to please 
him. So I hated to tell on his son, but I had to tell 
to get his way for Mr. Ditson. Take me down to 

[ 233 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


the lawyer’s and I’ll come over with the goods. 
I can prove by line and word, written and my 
own knowledge, that Maurice Ditson has faked 
the whole plot. There ! It’s told !” 

For a moment no one spoke. Gilbert Haw- 
thorne looked steadily into the eyes of the queer 
little man, but they never flinched. 

“Ichabod Rudd ” 

“Ichabod Lemuel Rudd,” said the little man. 

“Iehabod Lemuel Rudd.” Mr. Hawthorne 
adopted the correction with a slight smile. “We 
were getting ready to give up all that we love, 
our home and its associations, for I have bought 
back my mother’s old home with part of Mr. Dit- 
son’s legacy. I don’t know how to tell you what 
this means to us. And two days ago you caught 
the horse, and perhaps saved the children from 
a horrible accident. I think it is safe to say that 
Mr. Ditson would bless and thank you, if he could 
speak to you. I think he does bless and thank 
you, but that we are not able to hear it. I hope 
he will; I can’t!” 

“It was right,” said Ichabod Lemuel Rudd, 
struggling with strong emotion. “I hated to give 
away a Ditson, but Maurice was the worst sor- 
row his father ever had ; my dear old master told 
me so. And he had money enough, anyway.” 

“Come in and see my little mother; you’ll love 
[ 234 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

her, too,” said Mr. Hawthorne, and gently drew 
the queer little man into the house. 

The children stood motionless, gazing after 
them and at one another, speechless. 

Then the great truth rushed over them, and 
they fell upon one another, yelling like Co- 
manches, even gentle Isa and staid Prue equal- 
ing Poppy in yelling. 

“We’ve got you all, we’ve got our Jack-in-the- 
Box forever, ever, ever!” screamed Isabel, and 
Prue and Poppy and Mark joined her, madly 
echoing : 

“Forever, ever, ever, forever!” 


[ 235 ] 


























CHAPTER XVI 


HAWTHORNE HOUSE ABLOOM 

P RUE was the first to sober somewhat after 
the first delirium of joy had been vented. 

“I feel as though we’d all been hung up to die, 
and some one had come along and cut every sin- 
gle rope, just as we were going to squirm our last 
squirm,” she said, which graphic bit of inelegance 
made Isabel exclaim in protest: 

“Oh, Prue!” 

“It’s just like that, a what-do-you-call-it? A 
relieve?” Prue persisted, ignoring Isa. 

“A reprieve,” Mark told her. “So it is, Prue! 
In stories some one comes riding madly, his horse 
white with foam, just as the hero is standing 
blindfolded against the wall, waiting to be shot — 
they don’t hang heroes in stories. The rider 
turns out to be the king’s messenger. He waves 
a paper in the air, shouting: ‘Reprieve! Re- 
prieve!’ The king has found out the hero is inno- 
cent, and has sent the messenger with the re- 
prieve; he gets there barely in time. It’s always 

[ 237 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


like that in stories. This is like that ! Is Ichabod 
the king’s messenger? But I don’t dare be glad 
till after he has told the lawyers what he knows. 
Let’s wait till daddy’s had him down to their 
office and they say we’re all right. Then let’s 
raise the roof!” 

It needed no more than a suggestion that 
everything might not be all right to quiet the 
little girls ; it would be worse to be disappointed 
than not to have hoped, as it always is. 

Mr. Hawthorne went away to the city in the 
earliest train that left Greenacres in the morn- 
ing. He would not return until the second day, 
and the four children were in difficulties with the 
intervening time. 

How to fill the weary hours till they could 
know positively that the cruel parting was not to 
be — they would not consider Ichabod Rudd’s tes- 
timony being useless to the Hawthornes — was a 
hard question to solve. 

Prue withdrew herself from her playmates. 
She said she “did not want to see Mark till she 
knew that she could see him right along.” She 
set her bureau drawers in apple-pie order, though 
they did not need tidying; Prue was an orderly 
child. She got her mother to give her long-prom- 
ised lessons in cutting and putting together a 
middy blouse — altogether, Prudence filled in her 
[ 238 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

time in ways so useful as to be absorbing, which 
kept her from fretting too much and gave her the 
pleasant sense of being “womanly” under afflic- 
tion of mind. 

Isabel, on the other hand, haunted Mark’s 
footsteps. She was not capable of thinking of 
anything else than of his loss, and now that in 
so short a time she was to know whether or not 
she should lose him, now that there was likeli- 
hood of keeping him, she could bear the strain of 
waiting only by keeping him in sight, and dogged 
his footsteps as Bunkie followed hers. 

Poppy did not bear the delay at all. It had 
to be put up with, but she did not bear it; she 
fumed her way through the two days, getting 
so cross that even Motherkins herself, so patient 
and understanding, found it hard to excuse her, 
though she knew that the child’s nerves were on 
edge. 

But Mark, sunny, even-tempered Mark, would 
not admit that there was anything to worry over. 
He alone of the four was his natural self while 
his father was gone to get the evidence that was 
going to make such a tremendous difference in 
his life. 

With Pincushion on his shoulder, where she 
best loved to be, Mark went calmly about his 
work and play. 


[ 239 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“No good fussing, Isa he said, smiling 

into Isa’s worried eyes and using the twist of her 
name which he had invented by way of caress. 

“You don’t care, Mark Jack-in-the-Box!” Isa- 
bel reproached him. 

“Don’t I, though! Maybe I care too much to 
dare to begin to be afraid it will come out wrong,” 
said Mark, and Isa caught a note in the boy’s 
voice that betrayed that his anxiety was intense. 

When the train was due on which Mr. Haw-, 
thorne’s return was hoped for, Poppy went down 
to the end of the driveway and climbed up on the 
stone post. There she sat like a statue, eyes set 
rigidly, looking in the direction from which Mr. 
Hawthorne would come, although it was long 
before he could appear. 

Isabel and Prue had come up to the Haw- 
thorne house to be there when the decision of 
their fate was made known. They and Mark 
prowled up and down, from room to room, un- 
able to keep still. Motherkins tried to hem a 
napkin, but her hands trembled and her thread 
knotted a great deal; her sewing was not a 
success. 

At last Poppy came tearing into the house. 

“They’ve come! They’ve come!” she shouted. 
“Ichybod’s along. Oh, gosh!” 

Everybody who heard her echoed what Poppy 
[ 240 ] 



“we’re all together, forever and for aye/’ they sang 






























THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

meant when she exclaimed: “Oh, gosh!” It 
didn t sound prayerful, but Poppy’s feeling when 
she said it made it a prayer for good news. 

‘Hello, daddy!” shouted Mark, without turn- 
ing to see the expression on his fathers face. If 
he were the bearer of ill-tidings Mark wanted 
one cheerful greeting to reach him before his 
family knew it; afterward no one would be able 
to speak quite cheerfully. 

But as Gilbert Hawthorne came into the room, 
followed by queer little Ichabod Lemuel Rudd, 
before any of the children had ventured to look 
at him, Motherkins cried: 

“Oh, Gilbert! Oh, my son!” 

Then the children turned to see. Motherkins 
sat erect, leaning forward in her chair, her work 
fallen, her hands clasped, her face radiant. 

One glance at Mr. Hawthorne, and they all 
knew the gist of what he had to tell. He looked 
triumphantly young and happy; his eyes were 
beaming. He strode over and caught up little 
Motherkins, as he might have swung Poppy, high 
in his arms. 

“Surest thing in the world, Motherkins!” he 
cried, laughing in joyous excitement. “Ichabod 
told what he knew, and the lawyers cross-exam- 
ined him — Maurice Ditson’s fellows were pres- 
ent, too — and he couldn’t be tripped up ; besides, 

[ 241 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


he had his proofs ! And Ditson’s lawyers advised 
him to drop it as quick, and considerably quicker, 
than he could! He should be grateful not tp be 
prosecuted for attempted felony. Of course, no- 
body wants to bother with him, but it’s not a 
pretty thing to have known about a man that he 
has tried to steal !” 

“I wouldn’t of told,” said Ichabod, in a wor- 
ried voice, “but I knew my dear old friend, the 
kindest friend a man ever had, would have 
wanted me to. He’d have blamed me if I hadn’t. 
I wish Maurice wasn’t his son; I wish his name 
wasn’t Ditson! But often and often his father 
wished the same. He was a sore trial to his 
father, a sorrow that ate right into him. I know 
he’d say I must stop his doing any more harm, 
if I could.” 

“Surely he would! Whether we were to gain 
or lose by it, I should say the same, you faithful 
Ichabod!” said Motherkins, touching the queer 
little man’s arm, and as he revered Motherkins 
beyond all words, this consoled him for the pain 
of doing something that distressed him to do. 

“And we are safe, Gilbert dear?” she added^ 
turning to her son. 

“Completely safe, and for always,” said Mr. 
Gilbert. “Mark, old chum-son, I haven’t spoken 
[ 242 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

to you. .Good news, laddie; everything is all 
right.” 

“Pretty good to hear, daddy,” said Mark. 
“I’m too glad to know how glad I am.” 

Isabel, Pme and Poppy had stood motionless, 
soundless, listening and watching. 

Now Isabel stirred, pale from excitement, and 
seized Pruc around the neck, hugging her till she 
choked her. 

“ They — are — not — going ! They — are — not — 
going — away — at — all!” Isa said slowly, in a sort 
of rapturous trance. 

This set free Poppy’s pent-up emotion; she 
realized that what Isa said was true. 

With a shriek that made everybody jump, 
Poppy threw herself over on her hands and cart- 
wheeled all around the room and out of it before 
Motherkins, a little shocked, could stop her. Out 
of the room she went and down the hall. Then 
they heard her singing at the top of her really 
wonderfully beautiful voice, the song growing 
fainter, and they knew she was running around 
the house, just as Bunkie and Pincushion ran 
when they wanted to have a celebration. 

The words of her song reached them ; they were 
simply these: 

“Oh, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoopity whoop- 

[ 243 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


ity whoop. And whoop, oh, whoop, oh, whoop! 
Forever whoop, whoop, whoop, amen!” 

“What we’re going to do,” announced Isabel 
after they had laughed at Poppy, “is to trim this 
house all over with all the flowers we can get! 
We’re going to take Hurrah — please, Mother- 
kins! — and get flowers from every one we can. 
And we’re just going to hang them all over Haw- 
thorne House to show it how we feel about it’s 
staying Hawthorne House.” 

“Second the motion!” cried Mark, starting up 
ready to go. 

“Oh, but, Isabel, Hurrah may meet paper in 
the road!” objected Motherkins. 

“Not in such a neat town as Greenacres! Oh, 
Motherkins, we took him all the time before that 
one day when it happened, so please don’t be 
afraid!” Isa pleaded. 

“We must take some risks,” Mr. Hawthorne 
said, to Isa’s intense relief, when his mother 
looked at him for an opinion. “We don’t have 
papers flying around our streets; Isa is right. 
The children must have a vent, little mother!” 

So in a short time the buckboard, with its three 
girls and a boy, started off to get a load of 
flowers. Poppy had thoughtfully taken the 
clothes basket, and Mark played at juggling with 
a bushel basket, seated on the end of the buck- 
[ 244 ] 


THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

board, facing outward and dangling his slender 
legs, as he always did. 

At the Wayne and the Lindsay houses there 
were many flowers, so many that it seemed likely 
that the children could not pick them in time to 
go farther. 

Mrs. Lindsay had run across to her neighbor’s 
to enjoy the children’s good news with her, and 
she said: 

“Helen, we will gather all the flowers that we 
have, you and I, and take them up to Hawthorne 
House, while the children go on begging for 
more; shall we?” 

And Mrs. Wayne had answered: 

“Yes, Margaret; we couldn’t keep away, could 
we? Aren’t you quite beside yourself to see dear 
little Mrs. Hawthorne with her last anxiety for- 
ever laid at rest? The dear little soul! I’ve been 
so troubled over it all!” 

“Drive on, then, Merry Beggars, and ask all 
Greenacres to give you blossoms!” cried Mrs. 
Lindsay, looking like a happy child herself. 

Flowers ! Isabel, Prue and Mark had to walk 
beside the buckboard, there were so many ! They 
had no expectation of what happened, but every- 
body loved Motherkins, the whole town knew 
how sad her life had been and rejoiced that an- 
other sorrow had not fallen upon her, so the 

[ 245 ] 


JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


Greenacres women showed this feeling by strip- 
ping their gardens of all their bloom to adorn 
Hawthorne House for its rejoicing. 

Walking up the street, with Poppy’s red hair 
topping masses of red blossoms in the buckboard 
abreast of them in the road, Isabel and Prue met 
Kathie and Dolly coming around the corner of a 
side street, turning in the direction in which they 
were going. 

All four little girls stopped and looked at one 
another, half smiling, hesitatingly, sheepishly. 
None of them had the slightest desire not to 
speak, but no one knew whether the others felt 
like answering. 

“Hello,” said Isabel, realizing that something 
must be done by somebody; it would never do 
for every one to stand there always, waiting for 
some one else to break the ice. 

“Hello. Are you mad?” asked Kathie. 

“We never were, so we’re not now,” said Prue 
reasonably. 

“I was,” Kathie said, “but I’m over it. I’d 
like to make up.” 

“We only wanted to know who it was went into 
that room; we only asked,” Prue said unwisely. 

“But if we get to talking about that we shall 
not make up,” Isabel interposed. 

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THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“Call it made up and let it go at that,” Mark 
advised. “Every one agreed?” 

“Yes. Agreed!” the four little girls repeated. 

“Come on up to the house. We’re going to 
trim it up and be glad. We know now who it 
was climbed up into the Club Room; the same 
one who took the coins and returned them; the 
queer little man we saw in the woods. Oh, it is 
a wonderful story!” cried Isabel, taking Kathie’s 
arm, who at once pulled it away to put it around 
Isabel’s waist in closer token of reconciliation. 

“Tell it,” Kathie said, and Isabel told it, fre- 
quently helped and hindered by Prue’s and 
Mark’s additions, or Kathie and Dolly’s excla- 
mations. 

“And we’re going to trim the house with 
flowers everywhere; in all the rooms, anyway. 
It looks as though we had enough to trim all the 
trees outside, but they don’t reach as far as you’d 
think when you see them like that.” Isabel ended 
the story of the narrow escape and the queer lit- 
tle man, with a gesture toward the buckboard, 
heaped high with blossoms. 

“There are our mothers with more!” cried 
Prue, as they turned into the driveway and 
caught sight of Mrs. Wayne and Mrs. Lindsay 
on the lawn, shaking out and assorting the bas- 
kets of flowers which they had got Prue’s big 

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JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


brother to help them bring to Hawthorne House. 

It was lucky that Kathie and Dolly had come 
up to the rejoicing. There were such quantities 
of flowers to place! Everybody talked at once, 
but it did not matter; nobody waited for, nor 
wanted a reply. 

With amazing speed Hawthorne House was 
set abloom. In every room there were flowers, 
masses of flowers, and over the front door, on 
the ledge of its old-fashioned transom, Mr. Haw- 
thorne had the bright idea of setting bowls, from 
which long festoons of vines and blossoms of nas- 
turtiums made a glory that looked almost as if a 
bonfire were blazing there. 

At last it was done; Hawthorne House was 
abloom ! 

“Well, it truly does look glad!” sighed Isabel 
in profound contentment, leaning her head, all 
ringed with her disordered dark hair, against her 
mother. 

“What shall we do with Ichabod Lemuel 
Rudd, children?” asked Mr. Hawthorne. “Quick 
before he comes ! He is alone in the world. Mr. 
Ditson looked after him, but since his death the 
queer, devoted little chap has gone solitary, with 
a lonely heart. And he saved us from the loss of 
this house and one another. Who can suggest a 
plan for him, to be told him when he comes back?” 

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THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

“X can!” said Poppy instantly. “ Adopt him, 
like you did me, and we’ll give up the Club Room, 
and it can be his, and he can shin up outside when- 
ever he wants to.” 

Mark laughed, but he said: “Pops hit it! 
There’s room enough for the queer little man in 
this great place, and we all like him a whole lot 
now.” 

“Mother?” queried Mr. Hawthorne, turning to 
little Motherkins. 

Motherkins smiled her placid smile, eyes and 
lips warm with it. 

“I adopted Bunkie when he was hurt — to be 
sure, Isabel took him afterward — but I did 
adopt him! And Poppy, too. And then I had 
no home that was my own, and no certainty of 
enough for myself. X think we ought to give a 
share of our happiness to Ichabod Lemuel Rudd 
— I’m sure he’ll give us as much as we do him, in 
another way! And think of the pleasure of call- 
ing his name !” 

“Trust Motherkins to cover up her goodness 
with a laugh!” cried her son. 

“A laugh doesn’t cover up goodness; I think it 
often proves it, Gilbert — that kind of laughter!” 
said Mrs. Lindsay. 

“He’s coming; tell him, Mark,” murmured 
Motherkins. 


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JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


“Ichabod, we — I mean Motherkins and my 
father — well, all of us — oh, gracious ! Say, Icha- 
bod, we want you to live with us, here, you know ; 
take that room we had to play in, where you 
climbed in and slept, you know. Live with us 
right along; will you?” Mark said rapidly after 
he had hesitated for a beginning; he blushed pain- 
fully, embarrassed by his office. 

“Oh, jiminy cats ! Oh, what’ll I say? I — I — I 
appreciate it,” said poor Ichabod, and burst into 
tears. He was indeed a lonely, longing little 
creature, and it seemed to him that heaven had 
almost opened when Mark voiced a desire on the 
part of these dear people to befriend him. 

“I’ll do things; I’ll help; you shall never be 
sorry,” he managed to say, gulping down great 
sobs. 

“Do you remember, Prue and Poppy, the day 
we opened the Club Room, we said it was just 
opening it, and we didn’t know what would go 
into it?” whispered Isabel, drawing Prue and 
Poppy’s heads together, the better to hear her. 
“It was true, wasn’t it? Isn’t it nice to have the 
dear little queer man, who so needs it and all of 
us, go into it?” 

“I feel that there is ice cream somewhere!” said 
Mr. Hawthorne, sniffing the air. “I smell ice 
cream and beau-ti-ful cream puffs somewhere! 

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THE QUEER LITTLE MAN 

Come on and find them, all of you! I guess 
there’s an ice cream freezer full, and that it holds 
four gallons — one vanilla, one chocolate, one, 
strawberry, one caramel ! Come and see how well 
I can guess!” 

“Because you know!” shouted Poppy with 
shrill ecstasy. “Oh, you great Mark’s-daddy! 
You treated!” 

“It’s the house,” Mr. Dadde corrected her sol- 
emnly. “The house treats us all — treats us the 
best it can. Let’s cheer the house gratefully, 
thankful it’s to hold us all together.” 

The cheers arose, loud and prolonged, and 
Bunkie and Semper Fidelis barked their parts in 
them, while Cushla-machree, alias Pincushion, 
ran up a tree to be on the safe side, in case it 
meant danger. 

Mark caught Isabel’s hand; she understood 
and took hold of Prue, Prue of Poppy, Poppy 
of Kathie, Kathie of Dolly, Dolly of Mrs. Lind- 
say, she of Mrs. Wayne, and Isabel completed 
the circle by taking Mr. Hawthorne’s hand in 
her other hand. 

“Oh, gracious, there’s Ichabod!” cried Poppy, 
and widened the circle to let in the queer little 
man, just as they had widened their home circle 
to take him in. 

Then, with shrieks of joy, they danced around 

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JACK-IN-THE-BOX 


and around Motherkins, and Isabel put the 
meaning of the dance into words : 

“We’re all together, all together, all together 
forever and for aye,” she sang. 

The others joined in her song, and thus they 
wheeled and danced, grown-ups and children, 
quite dementedly singing the words that mean 
so much when people love one another : 

“We are all together, all together, all together 
forever and for aye!” 


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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


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